By Seth Ayiah
Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, MMDAs, have been urged to review and also repeal some of the prison terms associated with their bye-laws. They should as well begin to publicly educate the people in their jurisdiction on their bye-laws to enable them to appreciate and comply with them. Addressing the media in Accra to outdoor its findings on a sensitization drive dubbed “Decriminalizing Vagrancy Laws and Advocacy Project”, in 12 MMDAs in three regions, the Executive Director of Crime Check Foundation, an NGO, Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng, said “Our observation is that MMDAs do not deliberately mobilize and sensitize citizens on the bye-laws”.
He continued that “when CCF organised sensitization workshops on bye-laws for citizens between June and August 2021 in collaboration with the beneficiary MMDAs, it was the first-time education was conducted on the bye-laws at the scale recorded”.
“Our plea is that increasing citizens knowledge on MMDAs bye-laws will improve compliance with the laws and reduce harassments, arrests, fines, and imprisonment of poor persons”, Mr. Oppong Kwarteng said.
The Ambassador Extraordinaire of Prisons said the challenge with the MMDAs bye-laws is that they disproportionately affect poor and voiceless persons.
“We believe that through a broad consultation, equally effective punitive measures can be adopted to deter bad behaviour”.
Mr. Oppong Kwarteng therefore called on Parliament to pass into law as a matter of urgency the Non-Custodial Sentencing Bill to help reduce congestion in the prisons.
The Public Relations Officer of the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana, NALAG, Nii Adjetey Annang, congratulated the Crime Check Foundation, CCF, on the good work done. He said NALAG and CCF are discussing the possibility of establishing a partnership to scale up education of Ghanaians on the bye-laws of the Assemblies.
Supported by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, OSIWA, an NGO, Crime Check Foundation from May last year embarked on sensitization of Market Women, Assembly Members, Head Porters, Hawkers, and Driver Unions among others in 12 MMDAs in Greater Accra, Ashanti and Central regions on the bye-laws of the Assemblies. Mr. Oppong Kwarteng explained that the aim of the advocacy project is to reduce the harassment, arrests, fines and imprisonment these categories of people are subjected to on daily basis by operatives of the Assemblies. It also seeks to increase the knowledge of the people on the bye-laws of the Assemblies.
In line with the objectives of “Decriminalizing Vagrancy Laws and Advocacy Project”, CCF successfully organised sensitization workshops on MMDAs bye-laws for more than 1,200 citizens in the project district, trained a core group of journalists who are supporting advocacy actions under the project, engaged Justice Sector institutions and other relevant institutions on effects of vagrancy laws on the poor and voiceless citizens and trained and provided smart phones to more than 30 Community Monitoring Teams who are supporting in monitoring activities in the project communities.
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