The Ketu South Assembly has presented cash and assorted items to 43 Persons with Disability (PWDs) to empower them to improve their livelihood and make meaningful contributions to society.
The items included assistive devices, industrial sewing machines, industrial leather machines, washing machines, photocopy machines, deep freezers, laptops and provisions as investments for the beneficiaries.
Other areas of investment included mobile money operation, animal rearing, kente weaving and petty trading, all totalling GH¢107,708.00.
The donation and items were procured with the three per cent allocated as disability fund from the District Assemblies Common Fund aimed at making more resources available to PWDs to ensure they enjoy decent livelihood.
Mr Gideon Nyamedi, the Municipal Social Welfare Officer, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the latest disbursement brings the number of beneficiaries to 443 (out of the 1,025 PWDs registered with the Assembly) since the disbursement of the fund nationwide through the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in 2018.
He charged beneficiaries to apply the resources to what they requested and reminded them that a monitoring team would go around to assess how the beneficiaries use the funds and those caught misapplying the items/cash donations would be sanctioned.
Mr Christian Dzisam, Ketu South Chairman of Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations, in an interview with the GNA, thanked the government for granting the requests of members.
He called on beneficiaries to make judicious use of the support to benefit themselves, their family and the society, saying resorting to begging for alms for a livelihood must not be an option for them and the only way out was to be enterprising to ensure financial independence.
An excited beneficiary, Ms Doris Irene Ahiekpor was grateful to the government for meeting her specific need and said the machine she got would boost her trade.
