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Beggars could be among the rich around
2006-04-28 08:39:49
By Deogratias Mushi
Did you know that beggars in this country could be living a rather comfortable life?
Next time you walk around big cities and towns, take a closer look at them, and you might find that they are ’stinking rich’, with some of them even keeping bank accounts.
Last Saturday I took the trouble of going around different parts of the city, trying to see how they (beggars) make their ends meet along the streets.
Driving along Ali Hassan Mwinyi road, one notices beggars posing with their grandchildren as they keep on asking alms from passers-by motorists.
At one time I took the interest of observing how much money could a beggar make within half an hour.
Within such a short time, she (the beggar) made 3,500/-. I asked myself a question. How much can the same person make in a day? Few thousands of course.
As I was pondering the income of such people, city askaris came and started arresting them.
Some were heard saying, ’ ...Unless you kill us, we will always return here!’ An old woman who was among the arrested beggars was heard shouting.
She continued ’Take us to court, police or prison but we will return,’ she continued amid applause from her counterparts.
One of the city officials who took part in the beggar rounding up said some of the beggars in the group were quite wealthy.
’See that lady over there,’ he said, ’She owns a house at Mabibo area, which she rents out to tenants, yet we found her begging in the streets.’
In Arusha recently, something very interesting about the beggars was reported.
Police in that northern town rounded up beggars and when they brought them before a court of law, one of the them produced a wad of Tsh. 1.4 million from his pocket for safe keeping, before being whisked into custody.
It has been discovered that most beggars file different names with each arrest in an attempt to assume various identities lest they are declared notorious.
For example in the reported case in Arusha, one in the group was a lady with two babies.
’My husband is away, he went to Nairobi,’ she said. It turned out that the said husband is a handicapped person who is also a beggar trying his luck at the Kenyan capital city.
A number of beggars, who were arrested in Arusha recently, happened to be lepers.
Some of them remained silent as the physically fit ones kept shouting, demanding that human rights should be taken into consideration when ’harassing’ poor people.
Five young children were also caught in the swoop.
There were also two men, who admitted to have come from a special home in Maji-ya-Chai area, where they were being kept. ’We are from Mama Kuku’s home,’ they said.
Asked what brought them to town again, they confessed to have escaped in order to hunt for a few cents in town.
’We eat well there, but there are other needs, for instance, both of us have children who are attending school and have to cater for them,’ they explained.
’We are ready to pay taxes if that is what will stop the council from hounding us.’ declared the beggars in unison when speaking to journalists later on at the council grounds.
’Let the council decide how much money they want from us in order to leave us to work in peace, this is a profession like any other.’
See, these people do have money. insisted one of the municipal officials.
Major cities and towns, including Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Tanga, Mwanza and Moshi are currently experiencing an influx of beggars who should be repatriated to their places of origin, if the problem is to be addressed accordingly.
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