By Mildred Siabi-Mensah
Sekondi, June 16, GNA – Mr Jonathan Djan Gyau, the Western Regional Director for the Department of Social Welfare, has urged the public to stop giving alms to beggars, especially children living on Ghana’s city streets.
He said begging was an indictment offence against the giver and the taker according to the laws of the country, and warned Ghanaians shun such acts of indiscipline.
Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Gyau, said the Criminal Code of Ghana also criminalizes begging, and was unenthused about the fact that foreigners had taken over major streets and traffic intersections to engage in the act in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis.
He said, “I am particularly disappointed at the Ghanaian disabled who after collecting the Common Fund’s three percentage, still go onto the streets to beg.
We know that disability does not mean the affected persons cannot work to make something better out of themselves,” he said.
Mr Gyau called for inter-agency collaboration to deal with foreign nationals from Niger, Burkina Faso among others, who had taken to the street of Ghana purposely to beg, to change the growing phenomenon.
He narrated scenarios where young children, particularly girls, who had to be in school, were seen on streets always begging, saying “we can only handle this through effective engagement with immigration, embassies concerned and the Refugee Board.”
The Director also advised individuals who had taken begging as a business to desist from the practice as the law of the land frowned on the act.
He said a person who was found begging, wandering, on any premises or place to beg arrested by the police without a warrant, and would be liable for conviction to a fine not exceeding GHS1,800.00 or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months or both.
Sometime ago, the Vice Chairperson of the Gender Committee of Parliament, Ms Abena Durowaa Mensah, called for the enforcement of the Beggars and Destitute Act, 1969 (NLCD 392), which criminalizes the act of begging and giving to beggars.
She also called for the formulation of a policy to protect children from being used as street beggars, warning that begging was illegal in the country and could lead to prosecution of both the beggar and the giver.
Begging, also in some jurisdictions, is a recordable offence under section 3 of the Vagrancy Act 1824 (as amended) and anyone found sleeping in a public place or begging for money could be arrested.
GNA