RM600 mln spent on non-Malaysian prisoners
Posted on February 24, 2013, Sunday
KOTA KINABALU: The Royal
Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants in Sabah heard that
according to statistics by Sabah Prison Institution, the government had
spent RM604, 080, 840 for non-Malaysian inmates for 2006 until Oct,
2012.Central Prison deputy enforcement chief Kalbin Hj Mohd Said explained that for the central prison (male only), the government had spent RM281,455,515. For the female prison here, the cost was RM45,867,360. For Sandakan Prison, it was RM112,873,695 while for Tawau Prison, the amount spent was RM163,884,270.
“That was the average cost spent which covered their food, medication and treatment, shelter, clothing, electricity, water, reformation and so forth,” he said when answering a question by conducting officer Dato’ Azmi Ariffin.
Kalbin also said statistics of prisoners according to citizenship for 2006 until Oct, 2012 in the four prisons in Sabah showed that the number of non-Malaysian prisoners were higher than Malaysians.
“The increase in prisoners regardless whether there are Malaysians or non-Malaysians had caused congestion in the prisons, especially the central and Tawau prisons,” he said, adding that the Prison Department had taken steps to move prisoners to other cells at the instruction of the prison chief director.
Kalbin also said they were having problems, like prisoners carrying communicative diseases such as skin diseases and tuberculosis, but once they entered the prisons, they would be given proper treatment as well as medication.
“We are also faced with the problem of segregating the inmates according to their offences because places in the prisons are limited.”
To another question by Azmi, he said the Prison Department had implemented several approaches to overcome these problems such as a parole system and other alternative sentences such as community programs.
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