PWDs urged to utilise livelihood support items judiciously

The Department of Social Welfare and Community Development has again cautioned people with disabilities (PWDs) to refrain from selling their livelihood support items or face blacklisting or prosecution.

“Some have sold their refrigerators and farm tools in the past and we cannot allow this to continue,” said the Agotime-Ziope District Director of the department, Kingsley Sonu.

He sounded the warning at the presentation of various livelihood support items to another batch of 29 PDW in business in the district, at a ceremony at Kpetoe.

The items, worth about GH¢190,000, included bags of maize, groundnuts, gari, beans and charcoal.

They also included detergents, sugar, drums of local gin, wooden stalls, used clothes, consignments of soft drinks, frozen chicken, deep freezers, agro-chemicals, a wheelchair, window meshes and money to some ailing persons.

Mr Sonu urged the PWDs in the district to register on the PWD register to make the disbursement of the items due them smoother and more transparent. 
So far, he said, 511 PWDs had been registered in the District Album.

The District Director of Social Welfare and Community Development said a task force would be formed to monitor how the beneficiaries utilised the items to improve their welfare.

He maintained that some PWDs had talents and useful skills to play active roles in society and entreated the beneficiaries to use their packages judiciously to achieve that objective.

Association of PWDs

The Chairman of the Agotime-Ziope Association of PWDs, Wisdom Yormekpe, thanked the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development for the ceaseless support to its members.

He gave an assurance that the association would work hand-in-hand with the department to ensure all the beneficiaries used the items for the intended purpose.

“With this support, you must stop complaining of hunger, and you have no reason to be begging,” Mr Yormekpe told the beneficiaries.

A similar number of PWDs in the district received their support items last December.