The Cabinet has approved a proposal by the Justice Ministry to build a new central prison to address overcrowding, 16 months after Justice Minister Loucas Louca informed legislators where the new facility would be built.
Cyprus’ prisons are among the most overcrowded in the EU and currently hold over 700 people, double the amount for which they were designed.
The Justice Ministry said that 700 prisoners was the absolute limit “and when exceeding it we apply a policy of freeing prisoners who have lighter sentences or those who would be released within a short time”.
Even if capacity in the current facilities was expanded, it would only reach 577 for the closed prison and 714 in total by 2014, not enough to cover current and future needs adequately.
So the state is going ahead with a new building.
“We have agreed on creating a new central prison building on a public-private partnership (PPP) model to be located at Marki,” Justice Minister Loucas Louca told the Cyprus Mail.
The village of Marki is located on the outskirts of Nicosia.
The Ministry submitted a proposal to the Cabinet last week to build a central prison to hold 1,000 on a PPP model so that part of the cost could be absorbed by the private sector.
A private company would build and manage the facility for 25 to 30 years with the state being in charge of security and guarding the prison, according to the model the justice ministry favours.
The possibility however of the private sector solely operating the prison has not been ruled out yet.
The prison would have “ultramodern facilities” designed to limit costs by reducing staffing needs, the justice ministry said.
A subcommittee from the finance and justice ministries to manage the project is expected to be formed soon. Because the finance ministry expressed worries last November on costs, a consulting firm will advice the committee and see the project through, to ensure it is financially prudent.
The finance ministry said last November that even if the private sector was brought in on a PPP model (the term “private investor” cannot be used, the finance ministry said), the state would still need to fund the project, and so an “economic analysis” was in order.
