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Prison Officer Interdicted for Inciting Colleagues

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Published on Tuesday, 29 April 2008 19:03
A warder at the Kisii Prison has been interdicted for allegedly taking part in the ongoing strike. The officer in charge of the prison, Mr Julius Adero, said he interdicted the warder for inciting other officers. "I cannot condone such elements. I interdicted him for other officers to realise how serious I take this matter," Adero told The Standard on the phone about the Friday interdiction.

Last week, the Commissioner of Prisons, Mr Gilbert Omondi, said disciplinary action would be taken against warders who disrupt operations. Yesterday, Adero denied media reports that some officers at the prison were taking part in the strike. "I have explained to my 200 officers that they will face dire consequences if they take part in the strike and everything is running normally," he said.

However, some warders said Adero was issuing empty threats. Meanwhile, striking prison officers at Kodiaga and Kibos prisons in Kisumu have dared the Government to sack them, saying they were willing to be sacrificial lambs to bring reforms in the department. They dismissed the committee formed by Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, to investigate warders'.

"There is little they will achieve. What will they be investigating? In fact, the duration they have been given is too long to probe what every Kenyan knows," said a warder at Kibos Prison. They said the media had shown the world the squalor of their housing and clothes. Meanwhile, inmates at the prisons continue to receive their normal rations of food.

However, The Standard has learnt that some of the 880 prisoners at Kibos are willing to join the warders' strike. Some officers at the prison have threatened to release inmates by the end of today if their grievances are not addressed.And some have confessed that most prison officers have to bribe and sometimes give sexual favours to be promoted. Male warders claim they part with more than Sh100,000, while their female counterparts give in to the sexual demands of their male seniors.

But the officer in charge of Kodiaga Prison, Mr Joshua Yuma, says: "Forget what they are saying. These are malicious people."