While 53 received various items including wheel chairs, industrial sewing machines, knitting machines, overlock machines, glides shoe machines, barbering machines, laptop computers, sterilisers, three inches of one sitting unit chair, deep freezers, fridge and push trucks.

The remaining 46 received health support of GH¢400 each.

The last presentation, just before the turn of the year, brought to 358, the total number of PWDs served in 2019 out of the over 700 PWDs registered in the district.

Compliance

The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Ada West District, Mr Adzoteye Lawer Akrofi, who handed over the items to the PWDs, said the assembly, in compliance with the regulations regarding distribution, had satisfied the conditions and presented what the PWDs individually requested throughout the year.

He advised them to put the various items they requested to good use in order to improve upon their living conditions and that of their immediate families.

In the same vein, those who requested cash should also ensure they used them for the intended purpose, Mr Akrofi advised.

Disadvantaged

Mr Akrofi advised the PWDs not to consider themselves as disadvantaged since naturally every human being had one disadvantage or the other.

‘’The President knows that in spite of your challenges you are capable of doing something economically viable to fend for yourselves as well as your families and that is why his administration has increased your portion of the Common Fund from two to three per cent to enable you do something meaningful with it and earn decent living.

“I want to assure you that so long as the present government remains in power, your share of the disability fund will remain intact, and you will continue to receive it per the items you might request ,” the DCE emphasised.

Number increases

The acting District Director of the Ada West Social Welfare and Community Development, Ms Abigail Teye, noted that the number of the PWDs kept increasing by the day and expressed the hope that the funding would be regular so as to help establish PWDs who were a little bit disadvantaged.

She said there were parents who hid their disadvantaged children from the public and asked, “if you continue to hide them, how do we locate them for support like what we are witnessing today?”

She pledged that the assembly’s District Disability Fund Management Committee, in collaboration with the Social Welfare and Community Development Department, would ensure that they monitored the PWDs every quarter to ensure that the items collected were put to good use and for the intended purpose.

The District Chairman of Ada West PWDs, Mr Theophilus Awudu Amuyao, advised his colleagues to always save towards the maintenance of the items, especially those who had items which used electricity.