NEIP gives Prison officers and inmates processing equipments
Under auspices of the NEIP and in collaboration with the Prisons service to provide skills in various light manufacturing areas and entrepreneurship to prisons officers and inmates and to provide starter pack and kits they will use for production.
Speaking at the official launch of the entrepreneurship for restoration programme, the CEO of NEIP Mr. Kofi Fosu Nkansah reiterated the need for NEIP to also provide grants and loans as working capital for officers who have been trained for them to be able to setup these businesses properly and working capital to inmates for their set up, upon their discharge from the Prisons.
The grants and loans will be provided under the Youth in Innovative Agric disbursement for those who did fruit juice processing and the Presidential Startup Support and Youstart for the other products.
According to him, the light manufacturing areas for the training includes soap and detergents making (I.e bar soap, shower gels, liquid soaps, medicated soaps, afterwash etc), grains and cereals processing and packaging (for products like tom brown, rice soy, millet/ sorghum mix, weetabix, etc) juice processing and from all the local fruits, nuts tubers and legumes processing and packaging( like groundnut paste, chocolate spread etc), production of local nonalcoholic drinks like sobolo, asana, atadwe ginger drink, lamuji, saamea etc, production of youghurt and edible oil from palm oil and coconut oil, and cosmetics making(various body lotions and creams.
Government’s overall import substitution programme where they are able to replace imported products with locally produced ones which have made in Ghana labels on them.
He mentioned that the soaps and detergents produced will help improve on the hygiene and well-being of inmates, help reduce diseases and skin rashes, while the various food and drink products will help improve on the diets of inmates and help improve their overall health.
It will also help reduce the resources government spends to provide detergents and food products to inmates. Economic, the Prisons will also generate some moneys from the sale of these packaged products.
Meanwhile the deputy minister of finance Hon John Kumah who presented the items on behalf of the government to the Prisons service said he was optimistic that the items will go a long way for both the Prisons service and the inmates.
These include chest freezers, industrial blenders, water drums, mixing basins,wooden spatula and others.
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