Maputo, 20 Jul (AIM) – The Mozambican state spends about 1.5 billion meticais per year (23.5 million US dollars, at the current exchange rate) to feed prisoners nationwide.
“We can see that feeding prisoners costs about 150 meticais per day. Consumption of food per prisoner per month costs about 4,200 meticais, and about 50 thousand meticais per year. For the universe of prisoners we spend about 1.5 billion meticais”, said the national director of Penitentiary Inspection, Yazalde Viana de Sousa, interviewed by Rádio Moçambique (RM).
He noted that “the figures I am referring to do not include the consumption of water, electricity and fuel.”
De Sousa revealed that the inmate population in prisons in Mozambique is about 23,098, of whom 683 are women.
He said that over the last three years the inmate population has grown. “In 2020, we had a population of about 18,000 inmates, in 2021 we had about 20,517 inmates, in 2022 about 21,000, and in 2023 we have about 23,000 inmates. The population grows year after year”, he said.
Manica Regional Penitentiary, in the centre of the country, leads the national statistics with 3,294 inmates, followed by Nampula, in the north, with about 1,800 inmates.
Despite the growing number of inmates, De Sousa considered the prison situation in Mozambique as calm and controlled, characterized by the absence of incidents.
“There is no record of harmful strikes in prisons, disputes or insurgency, a situation that would modify the order and discipline in the functioning of penitentiaries”, he claimed.
He revealed that to make the prison system sustainable, in order to reduce its dependence on the State, the sector has drawn up a socio-economic development programme for the National Penitentiary Service that will serve as a guideline in the economic component of prisons.
(AIM)
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