Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government has established a Ksh. 40 million project that will solve sanitation issues in the major prisons in the country.
The Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) for Interior and Coordination of National Government Madam Winnie Guchu who was accompanied by the Commissioner-General of Prisons Mr. Wycliffe Ogallo made the announcement during an inspection tour at Kodiaga Prisons decentralized sewer system in Kisumu County.
The development of a conventional wastewater management system at the correctional facilities will improve on sanitation through wastewater management and curb pollution to the environment.
“We have a proposal to build cheaper, more efficient and smaller conventional treatment plants that will only need a half an acre as opposed to sewers that consume a lot of lands,” said Guchu.
The project will be funded by Water Sector Trust Fund while Kisumu County, the Kisumu Water Supply and Sanitation Company Limited (KIWASCO) will assist in the management of the plant on completion. This will aid in the treatment of the sewerage serving 10,000 people.
The CAS revealed that the amount to be spent is a grant from the Trust Fund.
Engineers are already on the site and its construction is scheduled to commence in October 2021.
On inception, the construction would only last 4 months for it to be ready for use as opposed to sewer ponds, which take a year, and requires large tracts of land.
It will cater to the prison, the neighboring community, and the schools around. The prison has a population of 7000 including both the staff and the inmates while the immediate community has 3000 people.
The plant will convey, treat, dispose or reuse the wastewater and make briquettes.
“Once the wastewater gets in, the treatment is incubated and it goes through different channels, and by the time the treated water comes out it has no smell and is clean to be discharged back into the environment,” said Guchu.
The commissioning at Kisumu Command was the second site for the decentralised sewerage treatment plant after the leaders last week accredited a similar project at the Shimo La Tewa Maximum Security Prison to improve wastewater management around Shimo La Tewa, Shanzu, Mtwapa, Bamburi, Nyali and Kikambala areas in Mombasa County.
Additionally, the state official further said that the ministry has come up with a model of how childcare centers should look like in all the prisons in the country.
According to Guchu, the state will inspect how children accompanying their mothers in women prisons are accommodated and the kind of facilities they have. Thereafter, the ministry would consider either improving the present ones or establishing new ones depending on the final report.
“Children’s units at the prisons should provide proper feeding area, sleep, toilets, entertainment, changing areas and education,” she concluded.
By Robert Ojwang’
