GHANA: 104 PRISONERS ON DEATH ROW PACKED INTO A HOLE FOR 24

The Acting Director General of the Ghana Prisons Service, Kofi Bansah, says there are 104 condemned prisoners currently on the death row. They are confined in a prison cell designed to contain only 24 inmates. He said however that efforts were being made to decongest the Nsawam Medium Security Prison as soon as possible. Mr Bansah who had appeared before the Public Account Committee of Parliament  noted that prisons in James Town, Maamobi in the Greater Accra Region and Wa in the Upper West region were to be expanded.
He said the Justice For All programme was on going adding, with only 42 prison establishments throughout the country, it was sometimes difficult to identify prisoners who escape to other prisons because they change their names.
Mr Bansah mentioned that government had allocated funding to improve the health care, medical consumables and beddings of the prisons. The death penalty has been in Ghana’s statute books since the inception of English common law in the country in 1874. 
Ghana still retains the death penalty for armed robbery, treason and first-degree murder.