Tension is said to be mounting at the Prisons Headquarters barracks at Cantonments in Accra, The Mirror reports that families of prison officers are at each other's throat over the use of limited kitchen and toilet facilities. According to the paper, quoting a Prisons Service source, presently, two families with an average membership of six each share a kitchen and a toilet. And the friction among the large families that use the "tight" facilities usually degenerate into quarrels. The question of whose turn it is to clean the small bathroom, toilet and the kitchen is answered with insinuations and, sometimes, outright indignation. The source told The Mirror that senior officers of the Service had, on many occasions, settled disputes, resulting from the use of the stifling facilities. "The designers of the facilities at the barracks obviously did not take the families of officers into consideration. Chamber-and-hall apartments that were meant to house not more than two people are now being occupied by as many as eight members of one family," the source said. The source said "sometimes our children sleep on the veranda, in the cold, simply because there is no space for them to put up in the room". "Sometimes," the source added, "we have to pack our furniture outside each night in order to create space for our children to sleep". According to the source, time and space for officers and their spouses to "know each other" becomes a problem when their children are around. "And because of that, some of us like it when our wards go out at night, but that also exposes them to a lot of negative things". The Mirror said when he visited the barracks recently, beds - some with mosquito nets - fridges, deep freezers and furniture littered the verandas of the flats. Some women were seen cooking in front of the kitchens which were situated very close to the toilets. A Prisons Service report on the housing situation for officers in the Greater Accra Region described the facilities as unsatisfactory in quantity and quality. "Barracks structures remained in a deplorable state, apart from not being sufficient for appropriately accommodating staff," the report added, pointing out that "there is crucial need for major repair works on Service barracks as well as the construction of new housing units". In the Eastern Region, inadequate facilities remained a problem at the regional capital, Koforidua, Akuse and Forifori. The poor accommodation situation at Winneba and Ankaful in the Central Region was a major headache for staff. The Western, Ashanti, Volta, Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper West and Upper East Regions faced worse housing problems. Source: The Mirror