Accra Rehabilitation Centre received only GHC200 for operations in 2011

Accra, Jan. 31, GNA - Mr Joseph Kojo Attigah, Officer in-charge of the Accra Rehabilitation Centre which trains Persons with Disability (PWDs) in carpentry, tailoring and craft works, on Tuesday said the Centre received only GHc200 from the Government for its operations in 2011. He noted that for over a long period the Centre which had 30 inmates had not been given the needed financial assistance, thus compelling it to charge the trainees GHc40 a year as fees for its maintenance.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Attigah said the poor financial status of the Centre sometimes compelled the trainees to abandon training due to lack of materials. He expressed appreciation to government for its decision to support the Centre with a substantial amount of money for its operations this year.

Mr Attigah said the Centre had not been able to admit women and persons below 17 years because it did not have enough facilities and accommodation to cater for them. He appealed to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Catholic Relief Agency and Christ Reformed Church (Kristo Asafo) to make available food aid to the Centre as a subsidy to the inadequate funding from the government.

“In the past we received food aid from USAID, Christ Reformed Church and the Catholic Relief Agency. Aid from these agencies were nutritious and went a long way to improve the health of the inmates.” Mr Attigah appealed to individuals and corporate entities to assist the Centre with food aid and money for its operation.

He expressed appreciation to the Government and rLG Communications for their decision to train 5,000 Persons with Disability (PWDs) in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) this year, including inmates of the Centre. Mr Atigah bemoaned instances whereby PWDs who begged on the streets were not willing to come to the Centre for training because they considered begging to be more lucrative.

In a related issue, Mr Isaac Tuggan, Coordinator of a chalk factory owned by the Greater Accra Regional Branch of the Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled, appealed to organisations to purchase chalk produced from the factory. He cited funding as the major challenge facing the factory and called on corporate entities to support them financially.

Mr Tuggan noted that last year, the factory could not meet the target set for it by the Ghana Education Service (GES) for chalk delivery because it did not have adequate funding to execute the project. “Last year, GES asked us to produce GHC88,400 worth of chalk but we could only manage to give them GHC72,000 worth due to the lack of funding for the purchase of materials”.

“With adequate funding, we will be able to import our own materials and expand our operations to employ more PWDs to work with us”.

GNA