FCTA urges residents to stop giving alms to street beggars

FCTA urges residents to stop giving alms to street beggars.

The FCT Administration (FCTA) on Thursday in Abuja appealed to residents to stop giving alms to beggars on the streets.

Malam Sani Amar, Director, Social Welfare Services at the FCTA Social Development Secretariat, made the appeal at a news conference.

Amar said the secretariat had intensified efforts to rid the territory of environmental nuisance, which include street begging, prostitution, child labour, drugs peddling and kidnapping among others.

The National Daily reports that the secretariat’s taskforce recently appended a 48-year-old beggar, Hadiza Ibrahim, with N500,000 and 100 dollar note.

Hadiza was caught at M&U Junction on Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, in Wuse II.

The director said that giving alms to beggars on the streets encouraged them and was causing environmental nuisance in the nation’s capital city.

“You can imagine somebody dishing out 100 dollars as alms to a beggar, not knowing that such person had more than that amount on her. Won’t the beggar return to the same location?

“We have established colonies and settlements of real people who are in dire need of such support either in cash or in kind,’’ he said.