Yes, indeed, prison labour is not for hire

-private establishments as part of income generating and self-reliance drives will have to look for other alternatives henceforth.

The government has had to issue this directive banning such practice, s some penal institutions took it up.

The use of penal labour for economic activities outside the parameters of a penitentiary is fraught with legal, regulatory and moral issues which defy consensual solutions and instead the only way out is to disband the practice.  A prisoner is in the first place someone who can’t work for wages, just fulfill a daily quota of work meted out by prison warders, in which case a labour transaction of that nature is by definition undocumented, as it doesn’t involve wage negotiations. Nor is it evident or assured that the proceeds thereof will go to fund prisoners’ welfare like improving the food they get, or habitats provided.

There are also reports that the department was sending prisoners to work on nation-building undertakings, which by another regard is more acceptable than providing prisoners for hire by private institutions and individuals. Still there are lingering questions as to how prison labour features in the costing for the public undertakings, except for Prison Department projects. As a different mode of accounting is envisaged, using prison labour raises clear issues of probity.

In addition, there is a policy and finally, disciplinary issue on the part of Prison Department top officials to stick to the president’s directive, namely that prisoners ought to feed themselves as they have the body ability to do so. The second parameter is building staff and work premises for the Department, while the government supplies other materials, assuming that they haven’t produced other goods which are sold and generate money for other procurement needs. In that sense prisoners’ labour can be used by a private contractor if such contractor is building premises (houses, offices) of the Prisons Department, if the prior budgetary arrangements exclude a breadth of wage costs in the overall construction plan, its cost outlays.

Home Affairs Deputy Minister Khamis Hamza Chillo told a high level meeting of heads of departments and agencies under the ministry that inmates’ labour is governed by specific work procedures, thus heads of prisons must abide by these procedures.  Doing something else would be in violation of some of the laws, for instance making available prison labour so that an entrepreneur cuts costs in what he is producing,, or in a construction project ostensibly for a fee paid to the Department,. It is clear that this kind of sourcing of labour is tantamount to cheating on product costs, hence an act of theft on the public.

There are also a number of international conventions on the matter, where issues of human rights and fair competition tend to interact, as exports to the United States under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) expressly forbids underpaid labour. A company exporting to the US and is deemed guilty of grossly underpaid labour is barred from accessing the AGOA market. Competition requires the use of correctly hired and remunerated labour, which excludes using prisoners.