Persons with disability (PWDs) in the Upper East
Region have hailed Government’s directive to increase their District Assembly
Common Fund (DACF) allocation from 2% to 3%, but are calling for more attention
to where the shoe is pinching them the most.
The common fund due them in the twin districts of
Talensi and Nabdam, according to the Upper East Regional Chapter of the Ghana
Federation of the Disabled (GFD), has been embezzled and there is no effort to
recover the missing share.
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| Awal Ahmed With Members Of The GFD |
Mrs. Josephine Koumkugri, member of the GFD Executive
Committee, mournfully told a press conference in Bolgatanga that PWDs had coped
enough with abuse and discrimination, and it was time they stood up to demand
their rights from duty bearers whose mandate was to promote and protect them.
“We want Government to pass a Legislative Instrument
to fully operationalise the PWD Act which was passed in 2006 to bring an end to
the gross violation of the provisions from the construction to health sectors
with impunity. We also want Government to amend the disbursement procedure to
make PWDs signatories to the 3% DACF account,” demanded the GFD in a statement
read by Mrs. Koumkugri.
For the PWDs, the only way to have a feel of
Government’s much-discussed ‘Better Ghana Agenda’ was to accord them the
recognition, the power and the share due them.
“We wish to emphatically state that if these issues
are not resolved before 30th November, 2012, then His Excellency President John
Dramani Mahama and all MPs should forget about the valuable votes of persons
with disability in the region,” they threatened, adding: “We also wish to remind
all politicians that PWDs are the largest minority group in Ghana as a whole
and the Upper East Region in particular.”
In a separate development, the Rural Initiatives for
Self-Empowerment Ghana (RISE-Ghana) has taken further steps in its
famous-becoming efforts to ensure that public buildings and social amenities
are easily reached to PWDs.
An engagement meeting organised in Bolgatanga for PWDs
and their duty bearers by RISE-Ghana in collaboration with the German Agency
for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Centre for Democratic Development Ghana
(CDD-Ghana) kindled a flame of hope, bringing closer the end of a painful era
that separated PWDs from society.
The duty bearers in attendance included the Ghana
Post, the National Sports Authority, the Department of Social Welfare and the Social
Services Committee of the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly among others. Speaker
after speaker took on the stage to address the worries of the PWDs, with Mr. Zachary
Baayakuu, Regional Manager of the Ghana Post, disclosing some arrangements by
his outfit to make the its structure reachable to PWDs.
Numbered among Ghana’s old institutions which at the
time of construction never had PWDs in mind, the Ghana Post (according to Mr.
Baayakuu) is making amends today by ensuring that its new structures in the
districts emerge with easy access for the disabled. Mr. Baayakuu said PWDs who
visited the regional office of the Ghana Post were given special care by
providing them with companionship to help them use the structure and to carry
their parcels for them. This will continue until the anticipated structural
adjustment is done.
Mr. Ewuntomah Richard Iddrisu, Upper East Regional
Director of the National Sports Authority, told the meeting that an estimate
for a pro-PWDs adjustment to the two volleyball courts and the basketball court
at the Bolgatanga Stadium had been presented to the Bolgatanga Municipal
Assembly. The adjustment is expected to provide seats and walkways for PWDs who
may both want to watch and take part in sporting activities at the stadium, but
the estimate is yet to see any cash injection since its submission to the
Assembly early this year.
By Edward Adeti, a journalist
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