MISUSE of farming inputs by some criminal elements, insufficient seed and lack of proper machinery have rendered most prison farms idle with little production that is insufficient to feed the ballooning prison population.

A number of Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) staffers have over the years been arrested and prosecuted for diverting farming inputs either to their farms or to the parallel market.

The country’s prisons have a carrying capacity of 17 000 inmates but, currently, close to 20 000 are in languishing jail.

ZPCS, which has failed to sustain itself, now relies on Treasury funding to feed the inmates.

Ideally, ZPCS with all the cheap labour, land and farming expertise is expected to produce enough food for inmates all year round plus surplus for sale, but the production has been extremely poor over the years.

Prisoners are gobbling almost close to $2,5 million monthly in basic foodstuffs like mealie-meal, cooking oil and sugar.

Daily the prisoners require 11 560kg of mealie-meal, 7 706ml of cooking oil, 9 633kg of sugar, vegetables and other foodstuffs.

ZPCS Commissioner-General Retired Major-General Paradzai Zimondi lamented the underutilisation of the farms.State media