By Michael Kofi Kenetey
The New Juaben North Municipal Assembly in the Eastern Region through its Social Welfare Department, has organized a business and financial literacy training and distributed business start-up packages to 43 Persons with Disabilities, PWDs in the Municipality.
The New Juaben North Municipal Chief Executive, MCE, Samuel Adongo hinted that the business start-up packages are to help improve the livelihoods of PWDs in the Municipality.
The gesture is in fulfillment of the government’s policy direction on the efficient utilization of the recently announced five percent disability component of the District Assemblies Common Fund, DACF.
The packages include chest freezers, ice chest, gas cylinders, frying pans, wheelchairs, containers to aid their businesses according to their needs.
Those who are into graphic design also received laptop computers to aid their work, while those who require financial assistance to go through surgeries and to pay their hospital bills were also offered cheques ranging from two thousand five hundred to seven thousand Ghanaian cedis.
In an interview with GBC News, the MCE for New Juaben North, Samuel Adongo, noted that the gesture is to empower the PWDs in the municipality to make them economically independent.
He noted that the municipality intends to empower all PWDs to ensure that no one is left on the street begging for money.
The Municipal Social Welfare and Community Development Director, Patrick Oppong, noted that in relation to the new disbursement guidelines, the Social Welfare Department needs to collaborate with the Ghana Enterprises Agency to organize financial literacy training for beneficiaries of every disbursement.
This, he said, will help them to manage their finances properly to prevent losses in their business.
Some beneficiaries of the disbursement speaking to the media that the packages have served as a relief to them. They commended the government for having them at heart and coming to their aid.
The New Juaben North President of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organizations, GFD, Kofi Sarpong Boateng commended past and present governments on their performance in terms of regulations, policies, and interventions that benefit people with disabilities.
However, he recommended that policies from governments should be more focused on empowerment, such as the disbursement of the start-up packages.
He bemoaned why some families decided to prevent their relatives with disabilities from socializing and called for extensive sensitization on issues relating to PWDs, adding that disability is not inability.
