The Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly (TNMA) has disbursed GH¢14,600 to 19 selected persons with various forms of disability to enable them to engage in profitable ventures. Eighteen of the beneficiaries took GH¢700 each of the amount, while another person, Ms Melody Asante, was presented with GH¢2,000 to assist her to undergo orthopedic surgery.
The TNMA has been disbursing money to the disabled in the municipality so that they would not be seen on the streets begging for alms.
Project proposal
At the function, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mrs. Christina Kobinah, suggested that the Association of Persons with Disability in the municipality should come out with a project proposal (through the Social Welfare Department) that would generate more income to support their cause. She explained that when such a project was embarked upon, the Assembly would then channel their periodic share of the common fund to it, which would make them more comfortable than the periodic sharing of the funds to individuals.
Mrs. Kobinah also charged the Social Welfare Department to ensure that members of the association would benefit from the government’s support to the PWD’s. She added: “This way, all of them will be out of the street and engage in a profitable venture to support themselves and their families”.
Mrs. Kobinah again stated, “In my view, so far as I remain the MCE, I will ensure that PWD’s will not be seen on the streets anywhere in the municipality begging or engaging in other anti-social activities, with an excuse that they are physically disabled” Mrs. Kobinah insisted. She said the government had set aside two percent of the DACF to be disbursed to PWD’s to engage in profitable enterprises for their upkeep. Ms. Asante expressed her profound gratitude and appreciation to the government for the support.
Sensitization programme
She appealed to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to come up with a sensitization programmes to encourage women who give birth to children with disabilities not to hide them in their homes but to rather expose them to undertake formal training in any form, so that they would become important personalities in the future.
She noted that in the past, PWD’s were hidden in homes and villages, and as a result those who had special skills and talents could not apply them in any profitable way but rather ended up in the streets begging for charity. The Municipal Finance Officer (MFO) Mr. Kweku Adjei, advised the beneficiaries to use the money judiciously and added that there would be periodic audit on them to ensure that the money was put to good use.