By Isaac Arkoh,
Cape Coast, Dec. 13, GNA – The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has rallied the collective support of philanthropists, individuals and corporate Ghana to enhance its public outreach activities and daily operations.
Mr Fred Mac-Ocloo, Principal Civic Education Officer at the Central Regional Office, said support for the Commission had become more relevant ahead of the district level election and the 2024 polls.
Despite the deep-seated constraints, the Commission was working assiduously to achieve its constitutional mandate, Mr Mac-Ocloo said at a day’s stakeholders advocacy forum for People with Disabilities (PWDs) in Cape Coast.
The Commission’s core mandate is to promote and sustain democracy and inculcate in the citizenry the awareness of their rights and obligations, through civic education.
“Though we are working hard with our mandate, but it has been heavily restricted by limited logistics and inadequate funding to enable us to operate optimally.
“The push is necessary to reach out to the communities and villages to collectively push the frontiers of the country’s democratic dispensation for all and by all,” he said.
Mr Mac-Ocloo stated that the political class should not only be interested in elections or winning the next election but should rather spend enough resources on civic education so that the citizenry would be discerning enough to be part of the governance system in the country.
“The current political situation is a worrying development, which must be nipped in the bud for all Ghanaians to put their shoulders to the wheel to contribute their quota towards the growth and development of the nation.
“The change we want to witness as a country must start with us, particularly the youth, through civic education so that they will grow up to play pivotal roles in the transformation of the nation,” he added.
Mr Mac-Ocloo also urged all physically challenged people to involve themselves in the upcoming assembly elections to enable them to participate in the decision-making process at the district level.
He said it was important that the public desisted from discrimination against PWDs in election campaigns and related matters.
Nana George Frimpong, the Central Regional President of the Ghana Blind Union (GBU), asked PWDs aspiring for the assembly member positions not to be intimated by anybody and be quick to report acts of intimidation for redress.
However, he decried the fact that almost a decade after the enactment of the PWD Act, 2006 (Act 715), which seeks to end discrimination against PWDs, they continued to go through harrowing experiences in accessing public spaces and services.
Although the Act gave a 10-year moratorium for all public buildings to be made disability-friendly, he said the premises of many public institutions remained “no-go areas” for physically challenged persons after the expiration of the moratorium on August 11, 2016.
Aside from their inability to access the premises of health facilities, he expressed concerns about discrimination in terms of access to relevant information on medical consumables.
He described as discriminatory the fact that local pharmaceutical products did not have braille embodiments on the boxes for the visually impaired to read the vital information on them, including the dosage and side effects of drugs.
Such a situation, among others, had deepened the vulnerability of PWDs, who had to be carried on the back of people and taken upstairs for treatment.
GNA