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Rapotice Prison Rapotice, Czech Republic October 24, 2006 Prague Monitor The project of the first private prison in the Czech Republic may be halted as the team of new Justice Minister Jiri Pospisil (Civic Democrats, ODS) has found it overpriced by CZK 0.5 billion, Lidove noviny (LB) reported Tuesday. "The construction of the prison would cost over CZK 1.5 billion but we want to lower the costs to CZK 1 billion at most," deputy justice minister Frantisek Steiner told LN. The Justice Ministry approved the plan of a private prison in Rapotice near Brno, south Moravia, since existing state prisons are overcrowded. At present there are some 19,000 inmates in Czech prisons, the capacity of which is insufficient, but the state has no financial resources to build new facilities, LN says. The private investor was to build a prison from its own resources and then operate it for 25 years, over which the state would pay the investor in instalments of about CZK 135 million a year. The prison for some 500 inmates should open in 2009. However, Pospisil and his aides at the Justice Ministry have questioned the project as they consider it too costly and inefficient. They also criticise the plan to build a sport stadium for CZK 100 million and a large library in the prison complex. |
