Features
Beggars in the City: Civic Responsibility vrs Religious Obligation
One cannot help but notice that in recent years there have been increased activities of beggars on the principal streets of major cities (Accra, Kumasi, Tamale etc.) in the country. Arguably Accra has been the leader in the activities of beggars in the country.
In Ghana begging is prohibited by law. Thus, Section 2 of the Beggars and Destitutes Act, 1969 (N.L.C.D. 392), makes begging a criminal offence. A person who is found begging, wandering, or who is on any premises or place to beg may be arrested by a police officer without a warrant. A person arrested for begging is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding GH₵1,800.00 or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding three (3) months or to both the fine and the imprisonment. However, the above prohibition does not apply to a person who is soliciting or receiving alms under a religious custom or the custom of a community or for a public charitable purpose or organized entertainment and a juvenile that is a person under the age of seventeen (17) years(Section 2(3)(4) of N.LC.D 392). Additionally, Section 6 of N.L.C.D 392 provides that a person found wandering about and unable to provide evidence of having a settled place of abode or employment, visible and sufficient means of subsistence, ora defective found neglected or abandoned shall be deemed to be destitute.
Notwithstanding the above express prohibition of begging in Ghana, the activities of beggars have gradually increased in some parts of the country over the period. Lead in this trend is the influx of migrant beggars from some parts of West Africa who most often uses children as their tool for begging. Due to the socioeconomic status of the country and the cost involved in enforcing this law on begging, the government of Ghana most often turns a blind eye to the activities of these beggars. This has emboldened these beggars to expand their activities as well as recruit more people into this venture.
Over the years, I have encountered these seven categories of beggars on the streets of Accra; I describe them by their status and the way they operate.
First is the “Professional Beggars”, these are mostly able-bodied people who have made up their minds they will beg as a source of livelihood. These people love begging, they enjoy begging, and they don’t want to do any other thing in life than to beg.I dare say that even if you attempt to help them secure decent jobs or set up businesses for them, they will still go back to begging. Some of these beggars believe their religion sanctions the giving of alms thus they must make themselves available for others to give the malms (one may argue that this is allowed under Section 2(3) of the Beggars and Destitutes Act).
The second is “Lying Beggars” this category of beggars may also be “Professional Beggars”. In addition to being “Professional Beggars”, they have mastered the art of begging by carefully crafting emotionally blackmailing stories full of lies. These beggars mostly come up with stories of needing financial assistance for medication, , hospital bills, food, and transportation among others. One will think that but for their needs, they wouldn’t be begging. However, this is just a scheme they use to solicit financial assistance from sympathetic people.
The third is “Circumstantial Beggars” these are mostly physically challenged people who due to unfortunate circumstances are unable to engage in any decent jobs or business ventures hence they resort to begging. Arguably if not for their physical challenges some of them may not be on the street begging.
The fourth is “Aggressive Beggars”.This category of beggars mostly resorts to the use of verbal or physical abuse to compel their targeted individual to give them money. Most often they get offended and use abusive words on an individual if they ask for money politely and the said individual refuses them. They may also physically restrain you in the street by grabbing your hand, holding your dress or bag among others just to compel you by the discomfort to give them money.
The fifth is “CasualBeggars” these are able-bodied people who are not Professional Beggars. However, from time to time these people resort to begging to augment their income from whatever business activities they may be engaged in. This category can also be referred to as “Occasional Beggars”.
The sixth category of beggars in the city is “Need-Based Beggars”. These are people that beg on the street because a need has arisen in their lives that they don’t have any means of taking care of the said need other than begging. These beggars usually have a genuine need that must be attended to, but they don’t have the financial muscle to do so all by themselves. Most often once the said need is met, they stop begging and undertake their normal activities devoid of begging on the street.
The seventh is “ChildBeggars”.These are children below the age of seventeen (17) years that are mostly used by “Professional Beggars” as a mechanism to undertake their begging activities. This category of beggars has been introduced in recent years by the influx of migrant beggars from some parts of West Africa. These children cling on to individuals on the street just to collect money from them whilst their parent/guardian relaxes under a shade supervising their activities. Most children under Section 2(4) of the Beggars and Destitutes Act and Section 18(g) of the Children’s Act, 1998 (560)(as amended) would not be held criminally responsible for begging. However, it is a criminal offence to use children as a mechanism to undertake begging activities. Such an act is deemed as exploitative child labour under Section 87 of the Children’s Act.
Note that the above categories of beggars are not mutually exclusive as there may be some beggars that fall within two or more of the above categories. There may also be another group of beggars I have not encountered who may operate differently from the ones I have identified above.
Section 5 0f the Beggars and Destitutes Act provides that a person who permits or encourages another person to commit an offence under Section 2 may be arrested by a police officer without a warrant. The person is liable on conviction to a fine not exceedingGH₵1,800.00 or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding three (3) months or to both the fine and the imprisonment. The question is does an individual commit an offence of encouraging another person to beg by giving alms to a beggar?if so, why do a lot of people still gives to beggars despite the possibility of suffering these penalties if arrested?
Most religions globally believe in giving to the needy in society. Also, our sociocultural orientation as Ghanaians encourages the giving of alms to the needy in our communities. As such it is not surprising that a lot of people give to these categories of beggars identified above when they encounter them on the street without hesitation. If you are a Christian believer like me, you might seek solace in Mathew 5:42 ESV which admonishes us to “Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you”. If you are a Muslim, you might draw inspiration from one of Islam’s pillars, Zakat which is alms giving or charity. Whatever your reason for giving to those who beg on the street, there is always a contrast between adhering to your religious beliefs and your civic duty not to encourage beggars on the street by giving alms to them.
Let me conclude with my most recent encounter with a beggar: on 25th May 2022, I went to Madina (a suburb of Accra) in the morning to purchase some items. I had to use the footbridge at Madina Zongo Junction to crossover to the other side of the street because the store I was going to was on the opposite side of the direction I came. Midway through my journey on that “anaconda size” footbridge, I was approached by a decently dressed fair lady. She had in her hand a placard with the inscription “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew11:28-30NIV. When we got close to each other, she asked me to read the inscription on the placard which I did. Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored her, but as religious as I am, I had to respect the carrier of the gospel of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, I paused and decided to listen to her share the gospel with me.
What was she trying to do? your guess is as good as mine.She was not trying to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to me but only to use the inscription on the placard as a means to get my attention. She started with a story about how she inadvertently stepped into someone’s “black magic” at Takoradi, which got her leg swollen, because of that, she was bedridden for six(6) months and had to undergo a series of surgical operations before she got back on her feet. Since the incident, she had lost her job and she had to undergo the final surgical procedure to bring her leg back to normal. She then proceeded to say she was raising money for the surgery, and I should give her GH₵20.00 to support her cause. I told her I didn’t have a GH₵20.00 note to give to her. From the inconsistencies in her storyline, I could sense she was lying. Also, she was wearing a long skirt, and clearly, I wouldn’t even dare to ask to see the leg. She then negotiated downward and said I could give her any amount, even if it was GH₵5.00 or GH₵1.00. For her not to waste my time further, I gave her a GH₵10.00 note.
After this encounter with this lady, who is a “Professional Lying Beggar”, I met her at that same spot on the Madina Zongo Junction footbridge attempting to catch my attention with the same strategy. That was a couple of weeks after my first encounter with her.
In light of the above encounter, I leave you with these questions: How do we religious people balance our beliefs in giving alms on one hand? On the other hand, as patriotic citizens, our civic duty is not to encourage this social nuisance that is gradually taking over the principal streets of our major cities. What must the government working through its ministries, departments and agencies do to reduce, if not irradicate this social nuisance that is engulfing our major cities.
Autor:
The writer is a Legal Practitioner
Email: barnabas.abisa@gmail.com
THE journalist is a hunter. He goes after human rats and grasscutters personified, matters about whom he can salt and spice and present as news. The fatter and juicier the catch, the better, because sensation is essentially our cup of tea.
Our job is to sell news and sell it in grand style.
Because the journalist is a hunter and is created with a special kind of nose for sniffing out news, he is usually not welcome in many places. He is seen as someone who has been born to make people uncomfortable.
The problem is that some people don’t want things written about them even if it is promotional and favourable. When it entails publishing their pictures alongside the story, they are doubly scared.
“Please, don’t use my picture. People will think I’ve got money and come for loan,” someone told me.
Anyhow, journalists are seen as intruders, undesirables, born with plenty of okro in the mouth; maybe some also in the nose. Some of my friends are no longer too close because they fear I’d give them full coverage in the Sikaman Palava column. Ha ha ha! What a funny world!
Well, people like my Uncle, Sir Kofi Jogolo, my former classmate and born-mathematician, Kwame Korkorti, and ex-football star cum human-salamander Kofi Kokotako don’t mind featuring in the hilarious inches of this column. Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty is one personality who has to be mentioned in this palaver.
These are people who are going to live long, primarily because they see the world as one big ball of fun. When Kwame Korkorti was told that his dear mother was dead at home, he smiled and asked the bearer of the message whether his mother had cooked the afternoon meal before claiming she was dead. Until her death, Korkorti ate his lunch at his mother’s end.
When my Uncle Kofi Jogolo was picked and lost 1,500 dollars and a good amount of Sikaman currency, he didn’t lament the loss. Instead he was amused. In fact, he was almost glad about it, because he grinned from ear to ear, stroked his delicate moustache and congratulated the thief, adding that “He is smarter than I am.” Yeah, Jogolo is the man who employs a Swedish barber to trim his moustache.
And when Kofi Kokotako was unemployed and was nearly hit by an articulated truck, he called the driver a fool. “The idiot should have killed me,” he said to me. “Didn’t he know I was unemployed and suffering?”
Today, Kokotako is employed as a Reverend and is not doing badly at all. Thanks to the regular silver collection.
And what about Kofi Owuo, the celebrated poor man. His wife left him not because he was poor, but because he swore in front of her that he would never prosper.
The following dawn the wife packed bag and baggage and went back to her parents and told them all about her husband’s alliance with poverty. Her parents were bewildered and called the alliance unholy. They had no option than to send back Owuo’s drinks to end the marriage.
Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty did not contest the issue. He was more engrossed thinking about how to become poorer than to contest what he called a frivolous matter. The wife could go to hell, he said. These are people longevity smiles upon. Nothing worries them.
Getting back to talking about journalists. I’d say that anywhere there is journalism, the issue of press freedom is not too far away. Is the press free? That’s one question foreigners want answer to when they are on visit.
Well, journalists celebrate a yearly WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY to drum home the idea of press freedom as a very important thing in the practice of journalism.
This year’s was celebrated almost a fortnight ago but people didn’t see much of us because we are normally not good celebrants. We should have mounted a float to roam the entire capital, dancing asaboni to brass band music just like PTC did recently.
Although journalists are known to be very good dancers because they walk very much, on that day, they were all busy writing. It was the Minister of Information, Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi who saved the day by addressing a forum organised to mark the day.
He is a man I’ve always admired since his radical university days. He spoke much on press freedom, cautioning the press not to abuse the freedom granted by the Fourth Republican constitution, but to use it for the progress of society.
Well, press freedom has been defined by many journalists as the freedom to ‘write nonsense’. This definition is not quite accurate. I asked one staff reporter to define press freedom. It took him fifteen minutes to put up something.
“Press freedom is the freedom that is enjoyed by the press that enables journalists to publish or broadcast any kind of material so long as it is absolutely true, is not libelous and slanderous, and is not against the national interest.”
I gave him eight out of 10, a straight A. I guess every journalist is old enough to know that certain things he or she writes is for or against the national interest. We certainly must guard against writing against the national interest; that is very important.
There is also the question of criticising government. The government can be criticized, so long as the criticisms are genuine and the President and his ministers are not insulted and called names. Let us criticize, but let us do it decently so that the journalistic profession can be revered, and its nobility acknowledged. We are not war mongers, are we?
One area in which journalists are not spoken well of is the complaint that they misquote people. Journalists sometimes misquote people, but in four out of five complaints it turns out that nobody is misquoted after all.
When we interview people they say things unreservedly and we publish unreservedly. When the publication is out and their friends or superiors read it and accuse them of having said too much to the press, then they start claiming they were misquoted.
We have encountered these ‘misquotation palaver’ every now and then and reporters are usually accused of this transgression. However, when they bring out their note-books or recorders, it is realised that they wrote nothing out of the way. “Book no lie”.
My advice to people who deal with the press is that if they do not want anything written, they shouldn’t say it. What they want to say is OFF-RECORD, then of course, there is no reason to say it. When you say it, you’re taking a risk. In that instance, you can’t also claim to have been misquoted or words put into your mouth.
And it isn’t every journalist who would be circumspect in matters that are supposed to be off-record, because journalists often want to be as sensational as possible to make their stories saleable. So say just what you want to see published and you won’t later regret it and claim you were misquoted.
Well, I’m not holding brief for journalists, because a few of us are notorious for colouring our reports sometimes sand-papering the words so much that they look very bright in front of readers.
As I once said, when the police tells one such notorious pressman that the thief stole a brown goat, the pressman would want to know whether the goat was bearded. Of course, the police would say ‘Yes’.
However, in the press report, it appears, “A gang of notorious goat-thieves were apprehended in the early hours of yesterday. In the car in which they were riding was a brownish-red goat having a long beard. Upon further examination, it was realised that the goat also had a greyish moustache.”
When the story appears, the police are naturally disturbed. A single thief turns out to be a gang of thieves. The goat also becomes a chameleon and changes colour to brownish-red. And a moustacheless goat overnight wears a greyish moustache whether you like it or not. Luckily the journalist does not add that the moustache was trimmed by a Swedish barber.
Yes, we have a few of such mischief-creating, chronically notorious journalists. But they are one in a hundred. In any case, we make the world. And we shall always do our best to make it a happy place to live in.
This article was first publish on Saturday, May, 20, 1995
When I hear of people who are of the opinion that they cannot make it in life unless they travel abroad, l become sad.
Whenever I see on TV, news of people, that is migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, while attempting to cross to Europe, l become filled with sadness and then anger.
The underlying factor is desperation born out of loss of hope, in life. When an individual tends to believe that his only hope of making it in life is to travel abroad, the risk of dying at sea, does not deter him or her.
The role of some pastors on shaping the mindset of people, especially the youth, leaves much to be desired. You hear them declaring on various media platforms how they can pray for you to get a visa to travel abroad, instead of encouraging them to find something to do to improve their lives as the Bible teaches that God will bless the work of their hands.
The GREATER WORKS CONFERENCE is geared towards renewing the minds of people with a specific focus on people of African descent to rid themselves of the negative perception of lack of capacity to excel in life.
Pastor Mensa Otabil believes that every human being, no matter the skin colour, was created in the exact image of God and therefore has the capacity to do exploits.
The whiteman was not created in the image of God while the Blackman was created in the image of something other than God. The Black person therefore can achieve whatever the whiteman can achieve.
The development in terms of industrialisation that is lacking which has generated unemployment for the youth, is due to lack of effective leadership. The lack of moral integrity in society, is what is causing the lack of job opportunities, which is as a result of corrupt acts which drive away private investment.
A culture of inferiority complex exists which needs to be dealt with, so the African can develop the self worth necessary for personal development which can then result in capacity deployment to avhieve personal goals.
Success in life begins with the individual’s recognition that he or she is capable of achieving the dreams he or she has conceived in his or her mind. The Bible teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding according to Proverbs 9:10.
Christianity was the driving force behind the development of Europe because no society can sustain development without high moral values. GREATER WORKS therefore is a deliberate project to shape the minds of people, especially the youth, who will become the leaders of our future, to prioritise morality in their daily lives.
This is the only way to see a massive transformation in every aspect of our lives as Ghanaians and Africans in Ghana and the rest of the continent.
Since the inception of the GREATOR WORKS CONFERENCE, it has made a lot of impact in the lives of many people from the youth up to the senior citizens level. I recall the testimony of a church member who was motivated and pursued higher education and became one of the youngest Chartered Accountants in this country. Year after year, the impact of the conference has been enormous and lives in Ghana and across the continent, are being transformed.
Black people have started regaining their self confidence and the youth have started getting into areas that previously were considered out of bounds. At a personal level, certain ideas that some years ago, l would have not dreamt about suddenly has become realistic dreams.
The Christian lifestyle has impacted on my children and those close to me. Mindset change starts with one individual, then another and then gradually it spreads like a viral infection until a critical mass is attained and them a massive impact. There is hope for the future.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
