Nairobi,KENYA:Interior and coordination Cabinet secretary Dr. Fred Matiang’i has backed up the idea of fining traffic offenders on the spot to avoid situations of congesting prisons in the country.
While flagging off 100 vehicles to various prisons throughout the country in Nairobi west Prisons, Matiang’i said the idea is to avoid queues outside magistrate’s courts and feeding of over 6,000 people in prison over traffic offenses only.
“Going into the future, we are looking on how we can decongest our prisons. We have numbers that are slightly high than the capacity we have. That’s why recently we are working together with the ministry of transport and the Attorney general office to ensure that we support inspector general of police in effecting on the spot fines'” Said Mataing’i.
Matiang’i argues that it does not make economic sense keeping the offenders in the remand custody where the government spends over 10,000 shillings on them when the fine accrued to them is just a 1,000 shillings.
He added that they have built a strong relationship with the judiciary by providing relevant resources within their disposal to ensure they support it to move forward on some of the decision they need to make so that they decongest prison and people get justice in real time.
The 100 vehicles flagged off will be used by prison services to increase transport efficiency in the country.
