Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in the Bolgatanga Municipality of Upper East Region have received business management training aimed at discouraging them from begging in the streets.
Numbering eighty, the beneficiaries were also empowered to be self-sufficient by venturing into profit making businesses using their quota of the two percent district assembly common fund disbursed to them.
The two day training was organized by the Department of Social Welfare in collaboration with the Business Advisory Center (BAC) of the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly.
Bolgatanga Municipal Chief Executive, Joseph Amiyuure, encouraged the beneficiaries not to allow their situations be hindrances to them in quest to achieve their desired goals.
“They should realize that, to be physically challenged is not a disability” he stated.
The MCE entreated them to utilize the knowledge acquired during the two day training to increase their business potentials in order to remain self-reliant.
Mr. Amiyuure stated that the assembly will always ensure the two percent allocation of its common fund for persons with disabilities is disbursed appropriately.
“For my assembly, the two percent that is meant for the physically challenged, we will make sure that those monies are there for the committee to access for the various applicants and to use it to support the beneficiaries”
Head of Department of Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, Mercy Maawoo Pwavra who doubles Secretary to the Disability Fund Management of the assembly said the department will monitor to ensure beneficiaries utilize for its purpose the 2 percent common fund allocation for persons with disabilities.
According to her government’s delays in releasing funds to accounts of persons with disabilities often poses a challenge to beneficiaries.
“The whole of last year, the secretariat did not channel funds into the accounts and it is just recently that they have sent funds into the account. So that is the main challenge. When the funds are exhausted and more doesn’t come in, then it becomes a challenge” She lamented.
Head of the Bolgatanga Municipal Business Advisory Center, Naomi Panwum stated beneficiaries are not limited on a particular business “but they are supported on a business they can venture in”
According to her the center intends to offer similar trainings for the benefit of all persons with disabilities in the municipal “because some benefitted the support and we have some potential people who will like to go into business, so it is not a one stop thing”
The Municipal Chairperson of Ghana Federation of the Disable, Josephine Kuomkugri was happy that the training will go a long way to serve as poverty alleviation to persons with disabilities.
By: Joshua Asaah|A1radioonline.com|Ghana
