Prison Service completes annual report for 2019 |21 May 2020
Group photo of Mr St Ange with his senior managers and staff from the Tanzanian Prison Service
• Improving service delivery noted
The Seychelles Prison Service (SPS) has completed its annual report for 2019 and will shortly submit it to the Office of the Designated Minister, Minister for Home Affairs, Macsuzy Mondon, for her review and onward direction.
The annual report for 2019 has this time incorporated additional areas of the service’s operations documenting the positive changes that the service has implemented for the past year and which has contributed to an improved service delivery over-all and year to date.
“We appreciate that we have not addressed all deficiencies 100% but we do take note that we are without a doubt on the right track as we continue to move to a systems based method of operations set against recognised international standards, like the United Nations Rules on the Humane Treatment of Prisoners, now known as the Nelson Mandela Rules,” said Raymond St Ange, Superintendent of SPS.
During the first COVID-19 pandemic, the prison service, like any other entity, had to ensure that the operations of the service were not compromised which included additional measures to address the safety and security of its staff and all inmates under it care.
“I can be proud of the general behaviour of the inmates in our custody, many of them feeling more stresses and concerns during this COVID-19 event. The briefing sessions held with them, along with other positive approaches, helped all of us to better understand what was going on and to realise calm operations in general. So my thanks to staff and to those inmates who made this possible,” said Mr St Ange.
Without a doubt the prison service as well recognises the valuable contributions made by all prison staff, from operations or support. In particular, and at a special ‘thank you’ session held on Tuesday this week, the Superintendent of SPS highlighted the positive contributions of the prison staff from the Tanzanian Prison Service (TPS) who since September 1, 2018, have been embedded with the SPS and ably performing. Now numbering and reduced to sixteen, the TPS prison officers have successfully contributed and added positives to the prison operations here in Seychelles, this following a memorandum of understanding signed by the two prison services on May 1, 2018.
“We are now at a point where we will re-evaluate our relationship, take stock of our personnel needs so as to keep driving improvements, then act on them so as not to disrupt what has been achieved over the past 20 months as a result of the additional support of the TPS staff being with us,” added Diana Asba, director of human resources and administration of the SPS.
The SPS last year successfully recruited and retained a number of qualified Seychellois candidates and will for this year plan for additional recruitments for 2021 in preparation for any gradual downsizing of foreign staff where needed.
Mr St Ange will next meet with staff from Nepal to thank them as well for their devotion and exemplary service and then after a general combined staff meeting where there will be further opportunities to update staff and to add additional thanks and a job well done!
The annual report for 2019 will be discussed at a next public event being planned with the James R. ManchamPeace and Diplomacy Research Institute of the University of Seychelles, observing the 3rd observation by the prison service of ‘Nelson Mandela’.
Press release from the Seychelles Prison Service
