Construction of Mageragere Prison will be complete to host the first batch of inmates by the end of 2015/16 financial year, Patel Kamanda, the prisons’ director, has said.

Kamanda was on Tuesday speaking to the monitoring and evaluation team from justice sector coordination secretariat currently traversing the country to assess the progress of 19 sector projects.

"Barring uncertainties, Mageragere Prison will be operating in full capacity by end of this fiscal year,” said Kamanda.

The construction of the correctional facility, situated in Nyarugenge District, was delayed due to mismanagement and misallocation of funds for the project.

The facility was meant to be ready to host inmates by the end of 2013/14 financial year.

But the 2014 Ombudsman report showed that the budget allocated to the construction of the prison was instead channelled into Nyarugenge District’s "other activities.”

Joseph Nshimiyimana, the monitoring evaluation specialist in the justice sector, lauded the progress made so far in the infrastructure development, noting that they were ahead of schedule as per the current construction timeframe.

"For instance, Mageragere Prison dormitories and administrative blocks were expected to be on foundation stage, we are pleased to see that construction work has gone beyond that. We now believe that the work will be completed on time,” said Nshimiyimana.

The facility will have capacity to accommodate about 8,000 inmates.

The modern prison will also accommodate inmates from Gasabo and Kigali central prisons, commonly known as ‘1930,’ all located in Kigali, according to Anastase Nabahire, the justice sector coordinator.

Nabahire said merging of the two prisons is aimed at reducing the prisons numbers in the country, hence reducing the budget spent on prisons.

There are 13 prisons countrywide and one children’s rehabilitation centre in Nyagatare District. Some 59,000 prisoners, 39,000 of whom are serving Genocide-related sentences, are booked into the 13 facilities.

After mergers, the nine prisons that will remain operational are Mageragere, which will accommodate inmates from Kimironko Prison and Kigali Central Prison,; Nyakiriba, Nsinda, Butare, Gitarama, Miyove, Nyamasheke, Mpanga and Nyagatare Rehabilitation Centre.

The team also visited the under-construction facilities of the National Forensic Laboratory in Kacyiru.

Other places to be visited include Nyanza High Court, regional police headquarters in Huye and Rwamagana, which are all under construction.

Final touches on forensic lab

Meanwhile, engineers working on the National Forensic Laboratory in Kacyiru are putting the final touches on the inside of the lab.

The facility, worth Rwf7 billion, should be operational by late 2017, according to Nabahire.

"Once the construction is done, personnel will be trained—and this might take time—since it’s quite a unique profession, and then the laboratory shall be operational with the availability of personnel,” said Nabahire.

The laboratory will facilitate during investigations that require forensic tests such genealogical DNA and saliva tests among others.

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