Educating officers and addressing the high absenteeism rates among Correctional Service officers will among priorities the Acting Correctional Service Commissioner Stephen Pokanis will be focusing on.
Revisiting Organizational Restructure and Prison industry will also be looked at by Pokanis during his three months as Acting Commissioner.
The Deputy Commissioner Corporate Services effectively acts as Acting Correctional Service Commissioner today, taking over from Commissioner Michael Waipo.
His priorities for the next three months, until an appointment is made will include addressing the high absenteeism throughout all the Correctional institutions, educating the officers on their responsibilities as well as addressing welfare issues and pension.
Revisiting the organizational restructure is something the acting commissioner is confident can be done within the next three months
“Our Organization restructure has set its purpose for that long. There is a lot of change that is happening, that we’ll be looking at reorganizing ourselves,”Pokanis said.
The prison Industry and Rural lock up, are two priorities the National Government has put in place.
“While rural lock up requires a lot of money to build and to establish, I think the prison industry is something that we would like to see from Monday to Friday all our prisoners and officers working in farms, throughout all the correctional institutions, that is something that we tried. We have been pushing for,” he added.
Meantime the administrative investigation on the leave of absence ordered by the NEC is ongoing with recommendations yet to be made.
“The other report the Commissioner (Waipo) whilst in office and that is in place is the National Prison Review, and we have the recommendations and minister will present that to the National Executive Council but the recommendations are very important and within the next three months, we can cause that recommendations and have a clear pathway of what we will be looking at in the future of Correctional service,” Pokanis further added.