Six convicted prisoners who committed petty offences but could not pay their fines have regained their freedom.

It follows an intervention by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) and Open Society for West Africa (OSIWA) to pay the court-imposed fines for the six, who are inmates of the Kumasi Central Prisons.

The released inmates had served between one and six months for failing to pay fines between 320 and 900 Ghana cedis for assault and stealing.

The gesture forms part of increasing advocacy by CHRI and OSIWA for the decriminalisation of petty offences project in Ghana, which has already paid for the court fine of 60 inmates.

Officials hope the project will help decongest overcrowded prisons in the country.

Project Officer for Access to Justice at the CHRI, Anthony Sedzo believes the time is ripe for Ghana to introduce non-custodial sentence.

"We believe that people who commit petty offences like hawking, traffic offences should not find themselves in jail. We believe there should be non-custodial sentencing law so that some of these people will do community service or do communal labour," he said.

"We are doing this advocacy because our prisons are already congested with petty offenders and then corona virus happened, if there should be an outbreak in any of the prisons it can easily spread because they are already over-crowded.

With the support of Open Society for West Africa OSIWA, we decided to write to the Ghana Prisons Service and pay the fines of at least sixty people who are in jail. So far we are done with a number of prisons; Ewutu Camp, Winneba Prisons, Ankaful maximum and we have decided to come to Kumasi to come to pay for some of these offenders we believe should not be in jail," he added.

According to the Ghana Prisons Service, the country's prisons are overcrowded by 52 per cent.

The number of inmates admitted at these facilities are double the capacity of the facilities.

One of them is the Kumasi Central Prisons.

Built to house only 600, the facility currently accommodates over 1,800 inmates.

Prison authorities say about 40 per cent of inmates committed petty crimes and are unable to pay court fines.

DSP Francis Yaw Appau is the Assistant Criminal Records Officer at the Kumasi Central Prisons.

He wants groups and organizations to help pay for the fines of inmates languishing in jail for petty offences such as stealing, assault and traffic offences.

" Some prisoners with petty, petty fines; GH300, GH400, GH500, GH600. They are all bunched up here, adding up to the seriousness of the congestion in our facility". So when we get such gestures, indeed, it will go a long way to ease the pressure on this facility. Averagely, those with petty-petty offences, they are the people that come in a lot. They constitute about 40 per cent of the total population," he explained.

Atta Kwasi Nuako, a taxi driver, was convicted for stealing by the Bekwai Circuit Court. For failing to pay a fine of 840 cedis, he was sentenced to a 10-month imprisonment.

Atta Kwasi who complained about the effects of the congestion within the prisons, is now a free man after the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiatives paid the fine.

"I am 23-years old and a native of Ofoase Kokoben. A friend of mine robbed a student of his money and fled the scene. The Neighbourhood Watch Committee arrested me. The court fined me GH 840 but I couldn't pay , " he said.       

"Back in the prisons, I have learnt a lot of lessons. Being an inmate at the Central Prisons is very difficult. In a group of 18 inmates, we sleep on one bed in turns. You cannot even turn whilst in sleeping position. It is not easy," Yaw added.

Officials hope the project will help decongest overcrowded prisons in the country.