Accra, Feb. 23, GNA - Mr Kojo Amoakwa, Chief Director of the Ministry of Manpower Development and Employment (MPDE), on Monday revealed that out of 3,000 registered Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the country, only 150 submitted their annual reports and statement of accounts to the Social Welfare Department last year. He said the Ministry would not tolerate such behaviour on the part of the NGOs this year, adding that those who did not submit their annual reports and statement of accounts as required, would be blacklisted and sanctioned.

Mr Amoakwa was speaking at the opening of a two-day pre-proposal workshop for 36 selected NGOs to develop strategies for the effective re-integration of core street children into mainstream societal life. The workshop forms part of capacity-building exercise in the Community-based Poverty Reduction Project (CPRP), jointly sponsored by the World Bank and the Government of Ghana.

Mr Amoakwa later told the Ghana News Agency that most NGOs in the country spent about 80 per cent of money made available to them by either government agencies, or foreign organizations, as administrative cost, for which they did not render proper accounts.

"NGOs are meant to be philanthropic organizations, but in Ghana today, most of the NGOs are fake institutions made up of people, who think there is money sitting somewhere, so they just organize themselves, just to get a share of that money for their personal use," he said. He said part of the sanctions for defaulting NGOs would be to deny them the opportunity of getting contracts from government institutions, adding that they would also be denied tax exemptions on imports for their local activities.

"We also write to the various sponsors, both local and foreign, not to give such NGOs money for their fake activities," he said. "By the 31st of March this year, we will circulate letters to all the potential sponsors with the list of the NGOs we have blacklisted."

Mr Amoakwa warned NGOs selected for the CPRP, to submit their annual reports and statement of accounts to the Social Welfare Department by March 19th, 2004 or forfeit the opportunity of participate in the CPRP exercise.

Mr John Jabaah Bennam, Deputy Minister, Welfare, said the actual number of street children in the country was not known, adding, however, that a situational analysis carried out in four pilot districts by the Department of Housing and Planning Research Unit of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology put the figure at 33,000.

He said so far, a total of seven billion cedis had been made available for the re-integration of the core street children into mainstream society, adding that 3.5 billion out of the total had already been disbursed.

Mr Bennam entreated the participants at the workshop to take the exercise seriously, and to apply the funds that would be entrusted into their hands judiciously, saying that, "you will be held accountable for every cedi you receive".

Mr Kofi Asante-Frimpong, National Coordinator, CPRP, said previous efforts at addressing the problem of streetism, targeted only 1,800 children, who stayed on the streets during the day, but went home to their parents and guardians in the night.

"This workshop is to evolve strategies to integrate the core street children, who live all their lives, both day and night on the streets and are exposed to the dangers of sexual abuse, child labour, servitude and communicable disease," he said.

He said the project, which was limited to Accra, Kumasi, Tamale and Sekondi-Takoradi, would focus on strategies for mobilizing the core street children from the streets, re-integrate them into societal life and also prevent others from getting onto the streets.