The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has commended the Sierra Leone Correctional Service as the most devoted and forward- thinking Government Department they had ever worked with in Sierra Leone.
The words of praises were uttered by the UNDP’s Rule of Law Specialist, Walter Neba Esq., while addressing a group of Corrections Officers who were participating in a two- days workshop on “SLCS Earning Scheme and Standards Inspection”.
Inmates Earning Scheme is one of the projects that are fully sponsored by the UNDP, and its aim is to provide a means of savings for inmates who are engaged in work behind bars. In 2018, the UNDP provided seed money for the opening of bank accounts for two hundred and fifty inmates across the country. The sum of Le 1,350,000 was deposited in each account. Now, another set of inmates have been earmarked to benefit from the same facility.
Not mincing his words, Neba Esq. assured that the UNDP will continue to support the SLCS in development. He said the SLCS should not hesitate to ask assistance from them.
Delivering the opening remarks of the workshop, the Director General of the SLCS recollected that in 2019, the UNDP commended the SLCS as an institution being “able to move mountains”. Mr. Joseph Lamboi said such words would only be uttered when proper and diligent work had been done by “all of us”.
“In that vein,” he added, “I encourage all of us to keep working hard by implementing whatever knowledge that is imparted on us.”
Mr. Lamboi stressed that success of the SLCS depended on the collective efforts of every officer, mentioning “the UNDP will only keep supporting us if they see progress in projects on which they have invested huge resources”.
In his remarks, the facilitator of the workshop, Josh Ounsted, Head of Access to Justice, Raoul Wallenberg Institute based in Sweden, said they were an institution that provided human rights training to the justice sector in different countries.
He enlightened his audience that they were neither a donor organization nor a partisan one.
“Our work is focused on dealing with human human rights issues and collaborating with institutions that do such.”
