OPINION: Prison food budget luxurious

Dear Editor,

THE $3.56 million prison food bill reported in The Brunei Times article dated March 23, 2014, on page A12, begs some outrage.

It translates to a daily food costs of more than $18 on each of the 543 inmates in Brunei. The last time I spent $18 a day on my food was never. That’s the cost of my weekly groceries for two people – and I eat quite well!

The article clearly states that this is strictly a food cost, so one has to wonder what kind of feasts are being served up in Bruneian prisons, or do they hold lavish birthday parties every day for prisoners?

I understand that prisoners, like any member of society, deserve correct and humane treatment even if this means providing three square meals a day and caring for their health and nutrition needs.

Prison sentences are a second chance for criminals and they are no less human than you and I. They are certainly no more, either.

Calculate that amount and you realise that an inmate’s monthly food expenditure comes to roughly $540, which is higher than the salaries of many lower-income workers in this country. A pensioner gets less than half of that.

My feeling is that the food supplier is the culprit, rather than decadent inmates. There has to be a way to at least halve that cost and put the $1.8 million savings into more constructive prison programmes.

Free citizen, Belait


Sumber - The Brunei Times