Maputo — Parliamentarians of the Commission for Constitutional Affairs, Human Rights and Legality (CACDHL) of the Mozambican Parliament (Assembly of the Republic), have called for moving prisons from the central areas of Maputo City to the outskirts.
This call came from the chairperson of the CACDHL, António Boene, who was speaking during a meeting which this group of Deputies held with the Secretary of State for Maputo City, Vicente Joaquim, according to a parliamentary press release.
“The removal of those infrastructures would create space for development projects”, said the document. It stressed the need to remove all prisons that are located in the prime areas of Mozambican cities and erect them in the peripheral areas, where the prison population can take part in productive activities.
Boene, who headed a group of deputies monitoring the government’s activity in the southern part of the country, pointed out the prison establishment in the district of Manhiça, Maputo province, as an example in the “involvement of prisoners in production.”
For Boene, examples of this type should be followed because, in addition to removing the prison population from idleness by subjecting them to productive activities it also comes as some relief to the state coffers.
Vicente Joaquim stressed that the matter is on the agenda, revealing that a deep reflection is underway in the meetings between the representative bodies of the state and the municipalities.
“There is an urgent need for the removal of prison establishments from the prime areas of Maputo City to the outskirts, a fact that would give another image to the spaces currently occupied by prisons”, he stated.