More than a decade after the closure of Ghana’s only maximum security prison (MSP) at Ussher Fort, in Accra, the plan for a replacement is now on course.

Work is steadily progressing on a new MSP Complex at Ankaful, near Cape Coast, to accommodate 2000 prisoners, which prison authorities say will help decongest the country’s prisons. Maximum Security Prisons hold people convicted for serious criminal offences such as murder, rape, narcotics and drug trafficking.

The Ankaful project, expected to be the biggest in West Africa, was started in 1998 but was stalled later for lack of funds until 2004 when it was resumed with HIPC funds.

Estimated to cost ¢1 billion, the complex comprises cells, 400 housing units for prison officers, a playing field, training workshops, administration block and a hospital, among other facilities.

The construction of cells is about 75 per cent complete and the Ghana Prisons Service is expected NEW to take over that part by July, next year.

The overall work is however about 35 per cent complete, members of the Prisons Council, who visited the project site on Friday were told.

The visit was to enable the members to assess the progress of work as well as to see the condition of other prisons in the Central Region.

The Director General of the Ghana Prisons Service, William Asiedu, told the Council members, led by the chairman, Samuel Ashittey Adjei that a facility to accommodate prisoners with mental problems would also be constructed as part of the package.

That, he explained, would be done in partnership with the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital, located nearby.

Additionally he said the 400 housing units envisaged under the project will greatly ease the accommodation problems of prisons officers to enable them to work effectively.

The Central Regional Director of Prisons, Oppong Kofi Tweneboa-Kodua, expressed concern about the encroachment of the prison’s land by unauthorized persons at Nkontrodo where most of the Senior Prison Officers reside.

Besides the MSP, other categories of prisons in the country, are Central prisons which serve as regional prisons, local prisons which accommodate minor offenders and the settlement camp prisons, where convicts are trained in modern agriculture.