The State Oil Marketing Company (OMC), Ghana Oil Company (GOIL) on Friday presented a pickup and a tractor worth over GH¢710, 000 to the Ghana Prisons Service to enhance its activities.
The presentation was to aid the service particularly in its agricultural activities to produce more food to feed inmates.
Mr Kwame Osei Prempeh, Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), GOIL, said the presentation formed part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility and in response to the service’s appeal to assist the government cut cost in feeding inmates as well as lessen the suffering of prisoners.
He reiterated that GOIL belonged to all Ghanaians for which reason if an entity needed assistance it was obliged to go in and help if it was capable.
“We don’t want to believe that at GOIL, we pay ourselves and we make profit for our shareholders who genuinely deserve it but we also believe that other sections of society should benefit,” he added.
Mr Prempeh indicated that the company would continue to support the service whenever it was necessary adding that, “As we stand here, like death we do not know who will go next and that applies to imprisonment.
“So we believe that if we can help to make conditions of our prisons bearable then GOIL will continue doing that –it is our duty to help the service and our fellow human beings,” he said.
The Group CEO of GOIL urged the service to use the vehicles for their intended purposes.
The Director General, Ghana Prisons Service, Isaac Kofi Egyir who received the vehicles commended GOIL for the gesture and for the swift response to the service’s appeal.
He noted that considering demands on the government, it was important for the service to look at other areas to bridge its funding gap.
“And one area that we have advantage of is agriculture which we need to expand to help government feed inmates and at the same time generate income to support other activities of the service,” he added.
As such, Mr Egyir said the service deemed it needful to look for assistance to achieve its goal for which reason it reached out to the OMC.
He therefore used the opportunity to call on other organisations to extend similar gestures to the service to enhance its operations and activities.
“For instance the Church of Pentecost has given us a skill acquisition centre at Nsawam which is complete and we are waiting for commissioning. Now the issue is that we have inmates acquiring skills at some other centres but the problem is after the skill acquisition and the term is not due what next,” he stated
“So it is the plan of administration to have an industrial village at Nsawam where the inmates who acquire the skills will be offloaded to the industrial centrestoengage in production for the market to generate income for the government and the inmates themselves,” he added.
BY ABIGAIL ARTHUR
