Kali­fa Clyne

The con­tract for a sup­pli­er of cell phone jam­mers and body scan­ners in pris­ons is ex­pect­ed to be award­ed in two weeks, says Jus­tice Min­is­ter Em­manuel George.George made the com­ment dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to de­bate of a bill to amend the Pris­ons Act, Crim­i­nal Of­fences Act and the Men­tal Health Act in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.He was re­spond­ing to com­ments made by Op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert, who ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of act­ing as though the pris­ons were a par­adise.

Im­bert ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment's ne­glect of is­sues such as ri­ots, poor fa­cil­i­ties, safe­ty of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, the ac­qui­si­tion of cell phones by in­mates and an al­leged prison lit­i­ga­tion con­spir­a­cy com­mon­ly re­ferred to as "Pris­ongate."George, who said most of the is­sues would be dealt with in the draft prison rules, which were wait­ing to be laid in Par­lia­ment, said Gov­ern­ment was cur­rent­ly ad­dress­ing many of the is­sues.Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter­wards, George said the mat­ter was be­fore the spe­cial ten­ders com­mit­tee of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the con­tract would soon be award­ed."We ex­pect that short­ly that con­tract would be award­ed and when we say short­ly, with­in a fort­night," said George.

He said the plan was to put cell phone jam­mers and body scan­ners at the Gold­en Grove prison, as that was the most prob­lem­at­ic.He said the con­tract for pro­tec­tive vests for prison of­fi­cers had al­ready been award­ed."We ex­pect that we will get the sup­plies with­in three months and once we get them it will go to the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons and he will de­cide who will get these vests."George said some of the vests were stab-proof and oth­ers were bul­let­proof.