BRIAN LIGOMEKA, Blantyre | Tuesday
ALMOST six percent of Malawi’s population, or 600000 people, are beggars and rely on handouts to survive, a report claimed this week.
Malawi’s Council for the Handicap (MACOHA) said in a statement the beggars were largely handicapped or homeless villagers who had been forced into the country’s cities and towns by hunger.
MACOHA spokesman Lewis Msasa stressed that begging was a social problem and could not simply be outlawed the way that many were proposing.
Local municipalities, businesses and other pressure groups contend that beggars are an eye-sore, contribute to crime and need to be cleared from the country’s streets.
Increasing competition for pavement space and money has forced some of the country’s more enterprising beggars to don business suits and go door-to-door in the business precinct asking for “contributions”.
“Begging is a social problem. It has been with us forever and will continue to plague us if society fails to address the underlying causes and fails to find alternatives,” said Msasa.
He stressed that people who supported beggars by giving money often contributed to the problem by enabling beggars to survive without having to work.
MACOHA currently helps “rehabilitate” disability people who had been forced into begging by poverty by offering skills and business training.
“We’ll only ever make headway against the problem if institutions and the public join hands. Longterm solutions require collaborative efforts, because beggars include those with disabilities, orphans and a whole range of other people,” Msasa said.
Government secretary for People with Disabilities Unit, Fred Mzoma, cautioned that not all disabled people were beggars and pointed out that many of the country’s 10 percent, or one million disabled people, were successful entrepreneurs, farmers or workers.
“Some of these prosperous but disabled entrepreneurs actually employ able-bodied people and play an important role in our economy. They also hold executive, managerial and other positions in the private sector,” said Mzoma.
Government was therefore, he said, developing a comprehensive skills training and business support programme to further empower disabled people. The programme would, he said, decrease their reliance on government grants and donor handouts.
Non-governmental organisations are however critical that government does not have any comparable policy for beggars or other economically displaced people.
“Many of these beggars would make it in the business world with a bit of training, because they are persistent and have initiative. We often get beggars dressed in suits going office to office asking for money,” said Blantyre computer company employee Jesse Phiri. – African Eye News Service