Former Minister of State at the National Security Ministry, Dr Brian Acheampong, says the amount allocated to the country's security agencies in the 2025 budget is inadequate.

During a parliamentary debate on budget estimates, he argued that the National Investigations Bureau (NIB), which operates across all 16 regions, has been allocated funds that would not even sustain its operations in Greater Accra for a month.

“The 2.9 billion cedis allocated to the entire national security architecture includes 2.4 billion cedis for compensation, leaving only 500 million cedis for operations. This is the same national security we rely on to protect our borders, assist the Defence Ministry, manage internal security threats, and handle operations like galamsey and conflicts in Bawku,” Dr Acheampong said.

He stressed that the security situation across West Africa is evolving, yet Ghana’s security budget does not reflect the growing threats.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak has lamented that prisoners are still being fed on just 1 cedi 80 pesewas per day for three meals, describing it as insufficient.

“We were hopeful that this budget would address the feeding challenges, but sadly, prisoners will still have to survive on 1.80 cedis for three meals a day. Even school feeding has increased to 2 cedis per meal, yet our prisoners are still on this outdated amount. The Finance Minister has, however, assured us that this will be reviewed during the mid-year budget,” he said.

His concerns were backed by the Chairman of the Defence and Interior Committee, James Agalga, who called for an immediate review of the arrangement.

“The Ghana Prisons Service has been struggling with inadequate feeding rates for inmates. The 1.80 cedis allocation has remained the same since 2011, which is a clear violation of the rights of prisoners. This amount is too little to provide even one decent meal, let alone three meals for adult inmates,” he added.