The Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency, Lydia Seyram Alhassan, has set up a relief and poverty alleviation fund to support residents of Shiashie – Soweto, a shanty community in the Greater Accra Region, which was ravaged by fire on Friday night.
More than 500 dwellers of the slum were displaced by the fire disaster, which wiped off their livelihoods.
About 100 kiosk homes were affected in all.
The MP, who mobilised help and temporary church shelter for the victims throughout the night of the incident, returned the scene of the disaster on Saturday with truckloads of relief items and a cash sum of GHS20,000 for the victims.
Upon her request, the National Disaster Management Organisation also came on board to assess the situation and provide more support.
Addressing the media after an engagement with the community leaders of Soweto, Lydia Seyram Alhassan noted: “It hasn’t been easy for my people, as you can see. It’s difficult”.
“We have provided them with the basic needs: food, some clothing and shelter. There’s a lot more that we can do for them”, she said.
The lawmaker, thus, called for more assistance from benefactors within Ghana’s most affluent constituency and beyond.
“As the MP, I cannot do it all alone; we have spoken to NADMO but I want to call on my constituents [to help]. We have well-meaning supportive benevolent members of this constituency and beyond [and] I want to appeal to you all this afternoon to come to our aid”, she pleaded.
She promised the victims that: “We will continue doing our best as we have done”.
“You can see behind me the boxes of dry food items that I have brought; buckets; they have to eat; they have to clothe themselves. We have brought the clothes [but] what I have there is inadequate, what I have there cannot support them for long.
“Some of them their workplaces, everything is gone; the livelihood is gone, so, I’m appealing to people, even beyond this constituency, to please come to our aid”, she begged.
“Support them. Help me support them”, she implored.
The incumbent MP, who got elected through a by-election two years ago and is seeking her first substantial four-year term, said the relief fund she has set up to aid the fire victims has been able to GHS20,000 so far “but it is woefully inadequate”.
“We are all in this together”, she told the media, adding: “Please, businessmen in this constituency, NGOs in this constituency, this is a problem that has affected not just my people here but all of us as a constituency”.
The lawmaker also lauded the churches in the community that came to the aid of the shanti towners when the disaster struck and assured the victims that she will do all she can to support them to get back on their feet.
