An impending law will soon ban people from taking food to inmates prison. According to the Director of the National Prison Service (NPS), Steven Balinda, the bill is already before the cabinet for scrutiny. The official said over the weekend that the draft law is intended to save the lives of prisoners caused by unhygienic foodstuffs.

"We are concerned with poor hygiene that has noticeably surfaced in prisons as a result of unclean containers in which inmates’ families carry food” said Balinda. He said prisoners have themselves not helped the situation by not keeping food containers clean.

However, Balinda indicated that only those with medical reasons will be allowed to have food brought to them from outside. He hoped the bill would soon be forwarded to the Chamber of Deputies and be enacted in the near future. There are also concerns that cases of food poisoning were hard to contain under the current situation.

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