112 seek assistance from Legal Aid Scheme in Volta Region

A TOTAL of 112 people have sought assistance from the Legal Aid Scheme (LAS) in the Volta Region in the first half of 2019.

The cases involve divorce, child maintenance and custody, property inheritance cases and unlawful dismissal from work.

The Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) unit of the LAS has so far attended to 55 of the cases and resolved 37 of them.

Two of the cases have been withdrawn while the rest are pending before the scheme.

Mr Maclean Kumedzro, Volta Regional ADR Officer, disclosed these to the Ghanaian Times in Ho on Friday.

He said that last year, the LAS received a total of 131 of such cases and resolved 93 in court and at the ADR unit.

Mr Kumedzro said that three of the cases were withdrawn while the rest were pending.

According to him, the surge in the number of people seeking assistance from the LAS was the result of the mass media education programmes on legal aid in the region, in recent times.

However, he stated that the lack of adequate staff and logistics constraints were adversely affecting the operations of the LAS.

For instance, he said, “with staff strength of three in the whole region and in the absence of an official vehicle, we cannot reach out to all the communities easily.”

Mr Kumedzro revealed that the LAS district office at Denu, was being manned by a national service person, and that was not helping the outreach efforts of the LAS in that area.

As a result of the lack of adequate staff, Mr Kumedzro said that the LAS often found it difficult to monitor or supervise debt recovery agreements in the communities.

Another difficulty faced by the LAS in the discharge of its duties, the regional ADR officer said, included the lack of cooperation from the police in times of the granting of bail in some cases.

FROM ALBERTO MARIO NORETTI, HO