Street Beggars Repel Investors

A proposal has been urged to rehabilitate and resettle the physically handicapped and visually impaired persons currently roaming the streets in urban centres begging for alms.

Mr Opoku-Agyemang Prempeh, Vice-Chairman of the Ashanti Region branch of the Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors, said the practice was not only morally wrong but had the tendency of repelling investors willing to come and invest their monies in development of the country.

Mr Prempeh made the proposal at a news conference in Kumasi at the weekend.

He said besides repelling potential investors and tourists from the country, the beggars also succeed in denying children of school going age formal education by engaging them as guards in their begging mission.

He noted that it was just not enough for government to rehabilitate the handicapped beggars but should also go a step further by creating a fund from where it could assist the physically handicapped with tools and capital to begin their trade after their vocational training.

Mr Prempeh, who is the Managing Director of Lakayana Construction Company Limited, said training of the handicapped in vocational skills alone was meaningless, if they were not assisted with tools and capital to enable them practice their trade.

He observed that, even though, the Department of Social Welfare existed to cater for the welfare of the handicapped persons and has trained and equipped a lot of them, their inability to support them with tools and capital had made them return to the streets.

On the issue of lunatics, Mr Prempeh said their increasing presence in city centres was not only an eyesore but also a threat to life and property of law-abiding citizens.

He said, even though, institutions already existed charged with the responsibility of handling such issues, it was still very crucial for the central government to intervene in view of the havoc the presence of lunatics and beggars was causing to society.