Lockdown: Assembly Members Snubbed In Food Distribution – GhaLoG Shocked

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Even as there were a lot of jubilation as the President of Ghana in his fifth address to the nation made known the intentions of government to carry out the food distribution for especially the vulnerable, a coalition called Chamber for Local Governance (GhaLoG) differs and has expressed utmost shock in why the modalities and constitution is breached.

According to GhaLoG, the MMDAs must spearhead the distribution and for that matter, Assembly members should be the frontliners in this fight!

Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection Madam Freda Prempeh says Assembly Members in the country cannot be trusted with government’s outreach programme of providing food for the vulnerable in the society during the lockdown.

Below is the press release from GhaLoG;

CHAMBER FOR LOCAL GOVERNANCE (ChaLoG)
P. O BOX SK 330, SAKUMONO ESTATES, TEMA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
8TH APRIL, 2020

HYPOCRISY OF GOVERNMENT, AS IT BLATANTLY SETS ASIDE THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEM FOR POLITICAL PARTY MACHINERY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD TO VULNERABLE PEOPLE IN THE LOCKDOWN AREAS

The Chamber for Local Governance (ChaLoG) is utterly shocked by the decision of the government to blatantly set aside the Local Government System and make an over the counter payment of GHc 70,000 (which is a weekly constituency allocation) in the lockdown areas through the Metropolitan/Municipal/District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the affected MMDAs in Greater Accra, Greater and Kumasi and Kasoa to feed the vulnerable and less privileged in the society.

The MMDCEs upon the over the counter receipt of these monies immediately handed them over to the Members of Parliament (MPs) and the Parliamentary Candidates (PCs) of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who subsequently contracted some school feeding caterers to do the cooking and the Polling Station Chairpersons/Electoral Area Coordinators/Constituency Executives to select their party members to benefit from the distribution of the food whether they belonged to the vulnerable or the less privileged category or not.

ChaLoG is therefore demanding answers to the following questions from the government:

1) What prevented the government from wiring the GHc 70,000 per Constituency to the Accounts of the MMDAs instead of making an over the counter payment to the MMDCEs?

2) Why was the comprehensive data of the Social Welfare and Community Development of the MMDAs on vulnerable people, persons living with disability, the aged and the less privileged not used for the distribution?

3) Why is the government using the local government structures to undertake contact tracing and yet cannot use same to trace and locate vulnerable people living within the MMDAs?

4) Why are the MMDAs still not working and yet their resources and logistics are being used to distribute food to the vulnerable by the MPs/PCs of the NPP?

5) Why were the Opposition MPs not allocated some of the GHc 70,000 for the distribution of food to the vulnerable people in their constituencies as well?

ChaLoG considers this action of government to be most unfortunate, considering the fact that, it is in sharp contrast with the clarion call on all Ghanaians and indeed all political parties by the President not to play politics with the Corona Virus Disease (COVID 19).

It is against this backdrop that, ChaLoG sees the government action to be very highly hypocritical, as it obviously seeks to profit politically from the COVID 19 pandemic to the disadvantage of the other political parties, who for all intent and purposes have suspended their respective political activities in furtherance of the support for government to successfully fight the pandemic.

ChaLoG finally calls on all other Political Parties, Civil Society Organisations, National House of Chiefs, Office of the Chief Imam, Christian Council of Ghana, the Diplomatic Community and the Media to condemn in no uncertain terms the hypocritical conduct of the government at a time when the attention of the nation is on the fight against COVID 19.

Long Live Local Governance
Long Live ChaLoG
Long Live Ghana

Signed

1. Dr. Richard Fiadomor President 0243138633
2. Hon Romeo Elikplim Akahoho Executive Secretary 0244967680
3. Hon Alhaji Ibrahim F. Faila Public Relations Officer 0244237456
4. Ing. Joshua Quist Director of Research 0546456940

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We can’t trust Assembly members in food distribution – Deputy Gender Minister

President Nana Addo in his fifth address to the nation to update citizens on the pandemic coronavirus, noted that his government is going to provide food for the weak in the society amidst lockdown in some part of the country.

“The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and local Government and Rural Development and the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) working with MMDCEs and faith based organizations have begun to provide food for up to four hundred thousand (400,000) individuals and homes in the affected areas of restrictions.

However, Madam Freda Prempeh speaking on the way forward to the distribution of food clearly stated that, Assembly Members can’t be entrusted with such an initiative.

“We won’t give the food to Assembly members to share” she screamed.

Madam Freda thinks, officers of the social welfare are closer to the vulnerable in the communities than members of the assembly who live with them adding that the social welfare has data of all vulnerable individuals and groups.

“It’s a team work, we don’t want to make it individualistic”, she said.

“For now, it is not an issue of Assembly members. We plead with them to continue with their community-based education for us. There will be 18 outlets in Kumasi”, she stressed.

But Mr. Akwasi Addai Odike who generated the argument on the other side of the debate in the studio noted that, Assembly members are supposed to be the frontliners in food distribution exercise. “They can go down to houses of the individuals and deliver the foods”, he added.

By: Radio1News|Ghana|Obido Nana Gyasi