<<Print>>

221 prison officers believed to be championing the removal from office of the Director General of the Ghana Prisons Service, Mr. William Kwesi Asiedu, have been hit by mass transfers. The move by the prisons boss has been viewed by top officers of the service as a way of gagging the personnel, who are not enthused with Mr. Asiedu�s administrative style. The officers who have been transferred are made up of 161 subordinate officers and 60 superior officers across the country. There is uproar within the service following a court judgement ordering the service to pay GH�2,824,299.45. to a private company for breach of contract. According to the top officials, the junior ranks were furious over the judgement because of the poor conditions prevailing under the watch of Mr. Asiedu. The enquirer gathered that but for some high profile persons within the service the personnel would have hit the streets to show their displeasure over the continue stay of office by Mr. Asiedu. The mass transfers, the top officials revealed to The Enquirer will cost the Prison Service over GH�120,000 (�12 Billion old Ghana cedis) A letter sanctioning the transfer of the personnel dated September 1, 2009 and signed by the Mr. Asiedu, directed the officers to proceed on permanent transfer to stations indicated against their names. The officers, according to the letter which The Enquirer has a copy, were to report to their new stations on October 1, 2009. The top officers questioned the rationale behind the transfer especially after Mr. Asiedu had made the service to lose such huge amount. �A cursory look at the transfer list clearly indicate that the personnel on it are those perceived to have problems with officers closer to Mr. Asiedu,� They told The Enquirer. The Prisons Service was ordered by an Accra High Court to pay over �2.8 billion to NDK financial Services and Apex consulting services following the Prison Service�s breaching of contractual agreement between the two companies and the Service. Services Limited for the supply of boots for Officers valued at the cost of Gh�83,782,500. However after Apex had secured a loan of GH�213,236.50 with an interest rate of 5% to supply the items, the Prisons Boss failed to take delivery of the boots three years after Apex had imported the boots into the country resulting in Apex�s inability to pay the loan back to the lenders(NDK. The abrogation of the contract resulted in the Accra High Court ordering the state to pay the �2.8 billion.