Prison.
According to DPP president Peter Mutharika's Personal Assistant Ben
Phiri, who led the delegation to the prison, the official cited the
use of party vehicles and availability of some top party official.
"Following the media reports which indicated that there is acute food
shortage at the prison, our president saw it fit to share some food
and medication to prisoners but we were saddened to hear that we
cannot donate the food.
"The Regional Officer mentioned me and others that we could not have
been part of the team to donate the things. So if we have the maize
and the medication to donate, do we need to hire vehicles to ferry the
things? So we will go back and try our best to see into it that they
get the donations," he said.
Speaking in an interview, Assistant Commissioner Clemence Chiwela
said the directive to bar the donation came from Zomba and not Maula
Prision. He later denied taking more questions.
One of the prison warders who spoke on condition of anonymity said
the prison run out of food in November and officials have been saying
there is no funding to buy maize.
"We are currently surviving on well wishers who came and donate some
food otherwise most of the times the inmates spend days without
eating," he said. He further said so far, about five inmates have
died due to starvation.
"As of December, the inmates just ate less than 12 times and the
issue is very worse to those on ARVs," he said adding that the prison
needs 27 bags of maize per day.
Maula Prison officials on Wednesday blocked the Democratic Progressive
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