Gambia’s notorious penal institution is up for sale by the government for $4 million, members of the national assembly heard on Wednesday.
The Gambia Ports Authority (GPA) will be the buying entity, according to interior minister Abdoulie Sanyang who told MPs that the money raised would be used to build a modern correctional facility to replace the old and usually overcrowded Mile Two Central Prison.
The GPA is on a port expansion scheme and it is thought that the land where the prison is located could serve that purpose.
Built by the British colonial administration in 1920, the Mile Two Central Prison located on the outskirts of the capital Banjul, has been notorious for its squalid conditions for inmates and synonymous with gross human rights violations, including torture under former President Yahya Jammeh.
Since his ouster in democratic elections in 2016, there have been strong calls for the facility which could hold 500 inmates, to be closed because it poses a stark reminder of those abuses during the dark days of Jammeh’s strongman rule.
In dark homour, Jammeh even referered to it as his ”five-star hotel to entertain” inmates many of whom were political detainees who had rubbed him the wrong way.
WN/as/APA