The Kassena – Nankana West District has disbursed 80,000 Ghana Cedis to 40 disables in the district.

Each of the beneficiaries received an amount of 2,000 Ghana Cedis which was made available to them from the Disability Fund, a component of the District Assembly Common Fund.

At a brief ceremony held at the District Office of the Social Welfare and Community Development (SW&CD), the District Director of the Department, Madam Victoria Asuliwono disclosed that of the total number of beneficiaries, 13 were men while 27 were women. She however added that, some 94 People With Disability (PWD) students made up of 53 girls and 41 boys at various levels of education including elementary, senior high and tertiary institutions of learning had their bursaries already paid to make them comfortable in the pursuit of their education.

Madam Asuliwono explained that the adult PWD folks mostly apply to the Fund through her office for support to undertake income-generating activities that will be of great help to them but she was quick to add that, such monies were not just handed out to the recipients without follow-ups and supervision. This according to her is “for the Department and government to ensure that, the PWDs do not misapply the funds as that in itself, will be counter-productive to their well-being and to the nation”.

She commended government for the periodic release of monies to the fund saying that this was the third disbursement her office was carrying out in less than 11 months as there were two earlier disbursements in February and June, 2024. 

Honourable Gerard Ataogye, the Kassena-Nankana West District Chief Executive who presented the cheques to the beneficiaries announced that the Presidential Candidate for the ruling New Patriotic Party, Dr. Bawumia has chosen to roll out a policy that will take all the educational expenses of PWDs in tertiary institutions, making it totally free. He stated that government values the little contributions PWDs bring on to national development and assured that, everything will be done to continue to pump more funds into the support and well-being of PWDs because disability can never be equated to inability. 

The Upper East Regional President for the PWDs, Mr. Mark Atia Ismael pledged that the Ghana Federation of the Disabled would continue to work for improvement in the living conditions of PWDs but warned members to be cautious in the things they do so as not to draw negative perception to the larger community of PWDs in the country. He also cautioned recipients of the funds to ensure that they use what has been handed over to them judiciously as anyone found in the habit of misdirecting such resources, risks being blacklisted in the future applications.

On his part, the District Finance Officer, Mr. Osman Zida, advised the PWDs to keep their cheques safely until such a date they choose to go and cash them noting that from the last disbursements, some of them misplace their copies and his office had to do fresh issuance.

The Government of Ghana promulgated the Disability Fund in 2005 the fund, with the aim to build the capacity of persons with disabilities (PWDs), particularly those outside of formal employment, to enable them engage in livelihood generating activities.  It began with an initial two percent [2%] proportion of the Common Fund and later got raised to three percent [3%] resulting from advocacy efforts by various stakeholders.

Source: Peter Atogewe Wedam, Kassena – Nankana West District Information Officer