The Northern Regional Director of the Prisons Service, E.C. Adjei-Korrel, has complained about the government's inability to provide prisoners with uniforms, the long detention of remand prisons and prison officers having to buy their own uniforms. He also expressed worry that prisons workshops are not being put to use because of lack of equipment and other resources. Mr Adjei- Korrel told the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence and Interior that the inability to provide prisons uniforms make it difficult to identify them when they break jail, citing the recent jailbreak at the Tamale prison cells. He was briefing the committee members in Tamale last Thursday as part of their tour of prisons in the region. The director said the long stay of remand prisons, some of whom had been on remand for four years, compounds the problem of overcrowding at the prisons, noting that all the region's four prisons are congested with Tamale the worst hit, accommodating 290 prisoners in cells meant for 90. He appealed to the committee to recommend to the Ministry of the Interior to increase the Prison Service's budgetary allocation to be able to provide prisons and officers with uniforms and to equip the trades workshops to serve the purpose of training convicts to acquire skills. Chairman of the committee, Mr. Eugene Atta Agyepong who expressed concern about the situation pledged, behalf of the committee to ensure that the challenges are addressed. Source: The Ghanaian Times