The Parliamentary Selected Committee on Local Governance and Rural Development has given Districts Assemblies in the Upper East Region, up to the ending of October, 2018 to disburse all Disability Funds in their Accounts, to Persons Living with Disability. They also challenged the Districts Assemblies to submit their reports on the disbursement of funds to the Committee for documentation.
The Parliamentary Committee which has been monitoring and investigating how some selected Districts Assemblies in the Region use the funds, revealed that, the Disability Funds that come to the Assemblies are either misappropriated or disbursed to the Persons Living with Disability in small tranches.
Speaking to A1 News, the Committees Vice-Chairman, Benjamin Yeboah Sekyere, and also Member of Parliament for Tano South, said the acts by some of the Districts Assemblies are not encouraging.
“The Assemblies are just sitting on the funds when persons with disabilities are skinning themselves to survive. When government is ensuring that those people are been cared for, the Districts Assemblies are rather adamant. Even with Assemblies that have been able to release the funds to some persons with disabilities, only 20 percent is normally allotted to them, while the remaining amount sits in the Assemblies account. He said.
He asked “Why will government bestow funds for persons living with disabilities and you, the Assemblies will like to sit on the funds?
“The Districts Assemblies need not to just support persons with disabilities with money, but help them with capacity building. Paying cash for persons with disabilities to be trained is something that the Districts Assemblies need to consider because it will help them in their conditions. They can spend the money within some days, but when they are helped with vocational training and equipment to establish themselves it will make them live decent lives. Mr. Sekyere suggested.
Meanwhile the Member of Parliament for Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem (KEEA), Samuel Atta-Mills was on a different leg about the mismanagement of funds among various government officials.
As a country, we need to stop this business of transferring non-performing officials from one region to another. When you are not doing well in the South, the government sends you to the North, and vise-verse. Look, its time we brought competent people in to the Assembly. This is because the Assembly is the government. If there are competent people in the Assemblies, they can be able to mobilize taxes successfully to help government achieve its goals. He said.
Source: a1radioonline.com | 101.1 MHz | Moses Apiah
