26 Jun 2019

Members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi have supported a motion by Kgosi Moeti Monyamane calling for government to construct a mini industrial workshop at Tshane prison to equip inmates with different skills.

Debating the motion, Kgosi Thebe Makwa of Moshupa region said the trades being taught at prison were limited in number and as a result some prisoners completed their sentences without having learnt much.

Kgosi Makwa said it was therefore imperative that a diverse training programme be adopted for prisons.

He wondered why Tshane Prison was focused on teaching and promoting traditional music only when it accommodated prisoners with different interests and skills.

Noting how prison had the potential to transform lives, Tswapong region’s Kgosi Galeakanye Modise indicated that it was therefore vital that efforts to fully rehabilitate prisoners be intensified so that inmates could leave prison able to not only sustain themselves but also contribute to societal growth.

Kgosi Peter Chika of Chobe region said the mini industrial workshop that the motion called for was important as prisoners often left prisons with limited skills.

He said the workshop would help to ensure that prisoners would, once back in society, be able to provide for their families and also help curb unemployment as they could start businesses and create jobs for other Batswana.

Tutume region’s representative Kgosi Rapelang Khuwe observed that if it was true that Tshane prison focused solely on traditional music, that meant prisoners who served their sentences there were not being adequately rehabilitated.

Kgosi Khuwe noted that vocational skills were important since they could be depended upon for one to earn a living especially since jobs were scarce.

Presenting the motion, Kgosi Monyamane had indicated that there were no training programmes at Tshane prison, save for the teaching of traditional music and dance.

That, he said was not adequate as it did not provide for the diversity of skills, passions and interests of prisoners housed there. Kgosi Monyamane said if constructed, the mini workshop would enable inmates to acquire skills in different trades such as carpentry, welding and metal fabrication, bricklaying and plastering, upholstery and leather works, among others.

He said properly equipping prisoners with key income generating skills would help to ensure that they did not re-offend.

Responding to the motion, defence, justice and security minister, Mr Shaw Kgathi said the main objective of the Prisons Department was to ensure that inmates’ lives were transformed, saying that was achieved through, among others things, equipping prisoners with vocational skills.

Minister Kgathi admitted that it was true that there was no vocational skills workshop at Tshane prison, explaining however that there were several rehabilitation programmes being run there such as performing arts, leather works and horticulture.

Appealing to dikgosi not to adopt the motion, he said despite the lack of a vocational skills workshop at Tshane prison, something was already being done to plug the gaps that could result from the lack of such workshop.

He said the department profiled inmates when they entered prison and tried to skill them looking at their passions and desires and where possible inmates were transferred to where there were training programmes that matched their desires.

The minister added that the prisons department was currently developing a rehabilitation policy, some of whose objectives would be to improve on the rehabilitation programmes currently in place as well as to explore alternative forms of sentencing, which would help address prison congestion.

After the debate, the house voted in favour of the motion. ENDS