The Prisons Service Council is pursuing plans to trade off prisons located in commercially viable areas to interested companies. Funds accruing from the deal will be used for the construction of modern ones, as part of efforts to improve facilities and decongest the prisons.

Already, plans are advanced to trade-off the Maamobi Prison Complex that houses James Camp prison, the Borstal Institute and the Prison Training School. The James Fort Prison is also to be relocated at Kasoa as a Remand Prison.

The Chairman of the Council, Rev Prof Andrew Ayettey said interested companies would be required to build new prisons at Doryumu near Dodowa, which would house the Prisons Training School and others at no cost to government.

This way, more modern prisons will be constructed at little or no cost to government with the country benefiting from business investments by the buyers. According to Prof Ayettey, the current prisons are very old and structurally unsafe for habitation by inmates and officers.