The Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) has obtained waiver from the federal government to employ 6,545 personnel.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria, the new intakes will be deployed in different cadre of the service and the NPS has provided N6 billion in the 2017 budget for the recruitment.
This was disclosed by the Comptroller General (CG) of the NPS, Mr Jaffaru Ahmed on Monday, February 13 at the 2017 budget defence in the House of Representatives.
Ahmed explained that the service had inadequate personnel, which prompted the request for waiver from the federal government to enable the service carry out recruitment.
On the 2017 budget, the CG said that N72.3 billion was proposed out of which N37.5 was earmarked for personnel with N19 billion for overhead and N16 billion for feeding of inmates and dogs.
He said that the service would embark on mechanised agriculture to enable prisoners produce enough food to feed themselves.
His words: “We intend to set up specialised farm centres to train prisoners and to boost food production and make prisoners able to feed themselves.”
According to him, the service spends over N16 billon each year to feed about 72,000 inmates in the country.
The CG also disclosed that about 27,992 work force of the service could not be paid their salary as when due in 2016.
He explained that only N27.9 billion was released out of N34.9 billion proposed for personnel.
He added that additional N3.9 billion intervention fund was later released by the ministry of finance.
