The MP for Kwadaso in the Ashanti Region, Dr. Kingsley Nyarko, has urged Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to ensure the protection of the fundamental human rights of the poor and voiceless in the formulation and application of local assembly bye-laws.
Speaking at a sensitisation workshop organized by Crime Check Foundation, CCF, on the bye-laws of the Assemblies in Kumasi, he stressed that the rights of the poor and vulnerable citizens are often abused by the assemblies in the implementation of their bye-laws.
This, he said, is because, in their daily struggle for economic survival, some citizens violate the bye-laws out of ignorance. The programme formed part of the implementation of CCF’s Decriminalizing Vagrancy Laws and Advocacy project which seeks to increase knowledge on the bye-laws of the MMDAs and other relevant penal codes to reduce violations, arrests, fines, and imprisonment of citizens under the laws.
Attainment of this objective is expected to ensure an enabling environment for ‘vagrants’ (the homeless, street hawkers, head porters, vendors, truck pushers, market women, artisans, and other identifiable and vulnerable groups) to know, claim and exercise their rights and responsibilities in Ghana. The project is supported by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, OSIWA.
The MP noted that the project which focuses on the rights of vagrants is a direct response to a ruling on vagrancy laws by the African Court on Human and People’s Rights’ on vagrancy laws on 4th December 2020, which stipulates that imprisonment of vagrants constitutes an abuse of their right.
He reminded MMDAs that the neglect of their mandates to provide an enabling environment forces people, especially vagrants to engage in acts that breach the bye-laws. “It is a fact that you arrest people who break the laws. It is also true that most of the Assemblies have not been able to provide dustbins, toilet facilities and other needs of citizens. It is, therefore, important for Assemblies to work harder because vehicles knock down citizens, people sell on the streets because there is no market and they are arrested, fined and imprisoned.”
Participants in the event included representatives of Traditional Authorities, market women, head porters, truck pushers, sanitation workers, local chapter of Federation of Disability Organizations, and other identifiable groups.
The Municipal Environmental and Health Officer, Rev. Wisdom Kudjoe took participants through relevant sections of the local bye-laws. The Municipal Chief Executive for KwaMA, Richmond Agyenin Boateng, lauded CCF for the initiative to promote education on the bye-laws of the Assembly to “end imprisonment under laws, improve protection of human rights and reduce prison congestion as well as poverty”.
The Municipal Coordinating Director of the Assembly, Rodalyn Pondua, said the sensitization on the bye-laws was important and should be decentralized to the community and zonal Council levels. She assured the public that the education on the bye-laws would be carried out thoroughly before arrests and fines are made under the laws.
The CCF has established Citizens’ Complaints Desk for people to report harassment and potential imprisonment under a local assembly bye-law to contact or Whatsapp through these numbers 0559544199 / 0507353539.