KIGALI - Rwanda’s prisons will reduce their inmate overcrowding from 120 to 108 percent this year, Internal Security Minister, Sheikh Mussa Fazil Harerimana, announced yesterday.

The Minister was speaking to Sunday Times in an interview shortly before officially opening a two-day meeting that attracted prisons chiefs from the East African Community.

The prisons chiefs are discussing how to implement the recommended work plan and proposed implementation modalities by experts from the previous meeting.

"Overcrowding in prisons was at 130 percent and has since reduced to 120. This year we want to further reduce it to 108 percent,” Harerimana said.

He added that the visiting prison heads will also learn a lot from the country’s prisons achievements since 1994.

"The first thing they will take home is that where there is political will, everything is possible. Another thing is the Biogas project which has greatly reduced consumption of firewood,” the Minister said.

Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has been helping prisons reduce their enormous consumption of firewood by introducing Biogas facilities.
The project converts human waste into combustible biogas that is used for cooking.

Reports indicate that it reduced annual wood-fuel costs by 60 percent, estimated at $1 million.

In 2005, Rwandan prison biogas facilities received an Ashden Award for sustainable energy. The award, which comes with a prize worth nearly $50,000, is given by the Ashden Trust, a British charity organization that promotes green technologies.

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