Private legal practitioner, lawyer Maurice Ampaw, has lambasted the president, his appointees at the Gender Ministry and other state officials for turning a blind eye to the plight of street children.
The controversial lawyer believes that the state has failed woefully in the implementation of policies to rid of child beggars from our streets.
Lawyer Ampaw in an interview with Kwame Tutu said, the state rather waste money on conferences, seminars and talk shops on child issues.
He said stakeholders are lined up at these seminars, paid per diems, eat fried rice and drink other assorted drinks at the detriment of these children.
He wondered why the number of street children keeps increasing when we have people at the helm of affairs.
‘’I think the institutions responsible for curbing child labour and ensuring the best interest of the child have failed woefully. We are not seeing anything from these institutions. The police have failed to arrest these beggars although it’s against the Local Government Act. They are only interested in stopping cars and extorting money from them. We have enough laws and institutions to deal with these things but it seems nobody cares,’’ he said.
‘’Ghana is not interested in the welfare of children, We have a broken system with failed institutions…Look at the number of NGOs we have in the country yet we have not addressed these issues. They go abroad and solicit for funds with the aim of sponsoring these children yet these children are on the streets. Government will always claim that they are addressing the issues yet we have not resolved them.”
“The Ministry of Gender should roll out a programme to stop child begging in the country. We should apply the same energy in the fight against galamsey in the fight against child beggars. We only enjoy mediocrity; we honour people who lack integrity. We don’t have people with the competence to manage social protection in this country. We have a Minister and a President, the Mayor and others driving bodily on our streets but neglect these children on the streets. We have failed as a country. We joke about everything,” he noted.
He added, “Those leaders who are awarded for the contribution to national development are fake. They have done nothing for the country. Aside Kwame Nkrumah and other few leaders, the rest are all fake. They are awarded yet we have not seen anything solved. Go and look at the policy on children in the manifesto of NPP, it is beautiful on paper but after almost a year in office, we have seen nothing done for these children.”
He lamented, “The children of Ghana are hopeless, have no future, suffering and it seems we don’t care as a nation.”
