Director-General of Prisons, Mrs. Patience Baffoe-Bonnie (ESQ), has revealed that the Mahama administration has approved an upward adjustment of inmate feeding to GHC5 per day, though the funds are yet to be released.
Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday, September 30, she disclosed that prison authorities have been managing just GHC1.80 daily per inmate a figure she described as “grossly inadequate.”
“Once the feeding is wrong, it has ripple effects on health and every other thing. We are hopeful the GHC5 a day will be increased in the course of 2026 to reflect the feeding regime for a disgruntled adult, an angry adult behind bars.”
Mrs. Baffoe-Bonnie warned that poor nutrition is a major trigger of unrest in Ghana’s prisons, placing officers at risk. “If there are any riots, the poor prison officer becomes the first point of attack before any intervention,” she stressed.
To supplement food supplies, prisons currently rely on gardens, a small fish pond, and donations from churches.
Beyond feeding, she called for broader reforms to improve prison conditions, emphasizing that inmate welfare is critical to national security. “They’re part of us, and we don’t know who will be our next guest,” she noted.
