President John Mahama has reiterated his government’s commitment to reform the country’s prisons to offer inmates opportunities to develop themselves.

He was speaking during a visit to the Wa Central Prisons for the inauguration of a GETFUND education structure as part of his Accounting-to-the-people’s tour.

The President admitted, the state of the country’s prisons leaves much to be desired.

"One of the things we need to do is to improve the budgetary allocation to the Prison Service so that we can really make active this issue of skills development for prisoners.

"Aside from that, literacy and formal education are important. There are many prisoners who either dropped out of school or did not have any formal education who in the years that they are in prison would want to continue with their education and come out much improved citizens than they went into prison," he said.

He added the facility being inaugurated is very significant because it would allow inmates to attend school and be educated whilst in prison.

President Mahama further indicated, efforts are being made to improve the conditions for remand prisoners.

"They are holding far more inmates than they should hold. One of the major problems is that we are bringing prisoners in on remand, some of them stay as long as two years before their cases are held. Some of them their cases are never held," he stated.

He said the Justice For All Programme has been instituted and will continue to be used in decongesting the prisons.

He added that new blocks are being constructed to hold remand prisoners separately from incarcerated ones.