FoN pushes for Disability-Friendly projects in Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality

By Erica Apeatua Addo

Tarkwa (W/R), Feb 5, GNA – Mr William Augustine Denkyi, Project Officer of Friends of the Nation (FoN), has called on Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly to ensure that all their projects and facilities are accessible to everyone, including Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).

He said “consistent monitoring has shown that there is lack of commitment to ensuring disability walkways are integrated from the start of projects. In some cases, these provisions are overlooked even at the completion stage”.

This oversight, according to the project officer, was depriving PWDs of the accessibility they were entitled to, and the assembly must see to it that the right thing was done.

Mr Denkyi made the call in Tarkwa when FoN in collaboration with the assembly organized a monitoring programme to access some projects funded from the Minerals Development Fund (MDF) in the area.

He recalled “In the past years, we have done several monitoring in the assembly on the utilization of the MDF in the municipality.

But with this one, we decided to do “Gender Responsive Tracking of MDF projects, looking at the impacts of mining, if the assembly is using the revenues from mining to affect development, the effects it’s having on women, the girl child, PWD’s among others”

Mr Denkyi observed that “with the past monitoring they have done, the Assembly does not involve the community during the designing of the projects. The community only comes in during the implementation or sod cutting stage. FoN is suggesting that community members should be carried along right from the beginning of the project”.

He said for instance, “Residents at Cyanide community wanted to construct a Storey building as their community centre. They even had funds available to support the assembly, but because they failed to engage them and did their own design, the community had to stick to that plan” the project officer added

Mr Daniel Kwame Okyere, Chairman of Ghana Federation of Disabled (GFD), Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality, reiterated that all the projects they inspected were not disability friendly.

He appealed to the officials of the assembly to work on all those projects and ensure that the future once met strict disability accessibility standards in their books.

Mrs Amanda Pokuaa Adjei, the Development Planning Officer, at Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly, assured their stakeholders that the assembly would share the recommendations with management and ensure that the contractors worked on them before handingover the projects to the assembly.

Nana Adwoa Kyewere, Queen mother of Tarkwa and Aboso expressed appreciation to FoN for introducing this programme to ensure accountability and transparency in the activities of assemblies benefiting from the MDF.

She pledged that the traditional rulers would liaise with assembly members, unit committee members and the residents in their respective communities to protect projects funded from the MDF.

Stakeholders who participated in the monitoring programme included: representatives of traditional rulers, Assemblymembers, FoN, women groups, Ghana Federation of Disabled (GFD), Ghana Education Service (GES), National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) and the media.

The team visited Simpa, Dompim, Boamah, Bogrekrom and Cyanide communities. Some of the projects they monitored were classroom blocks, astroturf park, toilet facilities, community centre and durbar grounds.

GNA