Be agents of change-CCF Director admonishes CMT members

The Executive Director of Crime Check Foundation (CCF), Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng has urged the Greater Accra regional Community Monitoring Team (CMT) to be agents of change in their various assemblies.

Mr. Kwarteng said this when he presented five mobile phones to the members of the CMT to help them in carrying out their monitoring exercises.

The team, comprising five members was drawn from the Accra Metropolitan, Ashaiman Municipal, Weija-Gbawe Municipal, and the La-Nkwatanang Municipal Assemblies.

The CMT is expected to monitor the effects of vagrancy laws on vagrants in their various jurisdictions.

The monitoring exercise forms part of the implementation of the ‘Decriminalizing Vagrancy Laws and Advocacy’ project.

The project, which is being implemented in twelve (12) Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) across the Greater Accra, Ashanti, and Central regions, is an Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) funded programme.

In carrying out the monitoring exercise, the CMT members are expected to report abuses of vagrants to CCF through audio-visuals using the phone.

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Mr. Kwarteng urged the CMT members to pride themselves as agents of change as their activities would help curb injustices in society. He however advised them to factor ethical considerations in their reportage.

“Your job will thrive on evidence and therefore you must be ethical when executing your task. When you forfeit ethics in doing your job it will undermine your credibility,” he entreated.

“Your job as citizen vigilantes will also help in the development of Ghana so see it as an honour and be proud as change agents,” he said.

The CMT pledged to use the phone for the intended purpose and work to achieve the objectives of the project.

“We have been working in our small various ways but this is an opportunity for us to show to the world that together with CCF and OSIWA we will brighten the corner where we are. We will make sure crime in our communities, the destitute, and the needy will get fair share of justice so that justice will prevail in our communities,” Cornelius Joe Amenyuie said on behalf of his colleagues.

About the CCF-OSIWA Project:

The project which is funded by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) seeks to create an enabling environment for vagrants (including the homeless and other voiceless persons) to know, claim and exercise their rights to end criminalization of homelessness and poverty in Ghana. The intervention is consistent with Sustainable Development Goal #16.3: Justice for All by 2030 and an opinion ruling on 4th December, 2020, by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, that vagrancy laws or laws which tend to affect mainly the poor and homeless persons contravene the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

About OSIWA:

Established in 2000, the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) is a grant-making and advocacy organization focused on equality, justice, democratic governance, human rights, and knowledge generation. It is part of the global network of Open Society Foundations spread across 37 countries around the world.  

The Executive Director of Crime Check Foundation (CCF), Ibrahim Oppong Kwarteng presented the devices to them at the Foundation’s head office in Accra.

By Rudolph Nandi

Email: rudnankp4@gmail.com