Kuli clarifies on Baisu Prison
The Minister for Correctional Services, Joe Kuli, has clarified recent court orders issued by the Wabag National Court Judge, Graham Elis in Enga, concerning the Baisu Correctional Institution.
The Minister emphasized that the court's directives was part of its own initiative to investigate the status and condition of the prison facility from a humanitarian perspective.
Addressing media today, the CS Minister clarified that the recent court orders from the Wabag National Court basically wants detailed reports and responses from correctional service authorities, on the present state and condition of Baisu Prison.
Minister Kuli also clarified the much discussed K49 million, which he says is associated with valuation and scoping and assessment of facilities at Baisu Prison.
He says the CS to date has not received such an amount of funding, but the K49 million figure represents the value assigned to the initial assessments and scoping conducted on the facility at the prison.
According to Minister Kuli, court orders as part of our ongoing efforts to ensure proper oversight and accountability of public funds allocated to correctional infrastructure projects.
He says the CS authorities are cooperating fully with the judiciary and will provide all necessary information to facilitate a thorough review as requested by the courts.
Meanwhile, the Wabag National court has given a dead line of 14th of November for CS Authorities to appear before them to explain.
Meanwhile, NBC has retracted a story we ran yesterday on our NBC website and NBC News Facebook page, as we had wrongly reported that K49 million was allocated for the improvement of Baisu prison facility. We implied that the K49 million was already expended, but no improvements were made at the Baisu prison. This is factually wrong as no K49 million was ever released. NBC News stands corrected and sincerely unreservedly apologises to the CS Minister Joe Kuli and the CS management on this misreporting and the obvious reputational harm it has caused them. We have also pulled down this erroneous news item from our online platform. NBC has also started internal administrative investigations into this regrettable incident.