Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i has announced a major change that will see Kenyan prisons converted into a state corporation named Kenya Prisons Enterprise Corporation.
In a statement on Thursday, the CS intimated that the government had already begun the process and the changes will be completed by 2021.
The move is aimed at ensuring that the prison service is self-sustaining in food and finances.
According to Dr Matiang'i, the corporation will be worth Ksh15 Billion after organising and managing assets from the 92 prison industries in Kenya, its 700 staff and the over 7,000 prisoners who work for the industries.
"It will also manage the 86 prison farms and over 18,225 acres of land, staff capacity of 480 and a daily average workforce of 10,000 prisoners," he stated on Thursday.
The plan will involve the enactment of the Kenya Prisons Enterprise Corporation Order that will set up a board of management, a secretariat, secondment of personnel, recruitment of a chief executive officer and establishment of offices.
The CS also conveyed that the government would establish a court within all the prisons, an endeavour that was commissioned at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison on Monday.
At present, only the Shimo La Tewa Prison in Mombasa County hosts a courthouse.
Commissioner General of Prisons Isaiah Osugo added that the department was in the process of giving a facelift to the prisons ahead of the acquisition of the new status.
Osugo relayed that his team was in the process of expanding the prisons by putting up new blocks and installing modern communication equipment.
