With COVID-19, and lockdown, has suddenly emerged the heart-breaking sight of Ghanaians queuing and screaming for food.
Even though government clearly means well, and spending the money to demonstrate its good intentions, the sight of screaming crowds pushing and agitating for food would be far from encouraging.
It is in this direction that I am suggesting the following.
I suggest the government use the ticket, coupon or voucher system.
That system uses the department of social welfare and the district assemblies. Government should requisition office spaces under something like a “war requisitions act” and take up available office spaces in all electoral areas in all constituencies in the regions affected by the lockdown. To be paid for later.
Into these offices would be placed young men and women working for the Department of Social Welfare on contract basis. Their job would be to register people who claim to be hungry and indigent. They would be photographed, fingerprinted and given a ticket, coupon or voucher which would entitle them to a certain amount of staples, such as rice, cassava or corn, and cash, say fifty Ghana cedis a week or month based on family size. It would be a crime to have more than one voucher or passbook. People with these tickets can then approach a central store or stores or market women in the neighbourhood with these vouchers which they will exchange for food. And the traders who come into possession of these vouchers can redeem them at a designated bank, like GCB. Presto, the unsightly sight of people queuing and screaming for food disappears.
Source: Ken Kuranchie
