Project Learning Event on management of District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) allocated to Persons with Disability (PWDs)
TEERE in partnership with the Upper East chapter of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organizations (GFD) on Wednesday November 07, 2018 held its project learning event in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region. This created the forum to share with stakeholders and the media the achievements made with the implementation of the project over the past 12 months. The learning event was captioned: “Sustaining the gains of Transparency and Accountability in the Management of the Disability Fund”. The event provided a platform for all stakeholders across the region to interact and share ideas on the way forward on the management of the disability fund which forms part of TEERE activities under the project dubbed “Promoting Transparency and Accountability in the Management, Disbursement Procedures and Utilization of 2% (now 3%) District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) allocated to Persons with Disability (PWDs)” In the opening address, the Deputy CEO of TEERE Patience Avea mentioned that the overall goal of the project was to establish an effective monitoring system to ensure that deserving beneficiaries utilize the funds to reduce poverty among persons with disability especially those outside the formal sector of employment. She was excited that over the period of the project implementation, three templates were developed: application, reporting and monitoring and evaluation templates. Furthermore, she said the project advocated for the use of cheque payment system for fund disbursement to PWDs beneficiaries. These she said would help eliminate unwarranted interferences on the management of the disability fund. She however mentioned that this system could only work if all stakeholders see this as our collective responsibility to ensure that the fund works for persons with disability The President of the Upper East Regional branch of GFD, Mr David Aniah, said it was the responsibility of the District Fund Management Committees (DFMC’s) to monitor and supervise the utilization of the common fund disbursed to Persons with Disability (PWDs). The GFD president noted that some beneficiaries misused the fund and stressed that the fund was to support the income generating activities of individual PWDs to enable them cater for their needs and those of their families. The project Officer of TEERE Avea Prosper Avea, stressed that the project sought to build an effective and efficient management of the 3% of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) for Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) to promote the inclusion of PWD societies for sustainable development, with the ultimate goal of providing PWDs justice through advocating for an accountable and inclusive local government system. Presenting on the success of the project, Avea Prosper Avea said TEERE and GFD undertook sensitization across Districts to empower PWDs on the purpose of the Disability Fund of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF). According to him, the PWDs were taken through the guidelines for the disbursement and management of the district assembly common fund for them. This has empowered PWDs to demand accountability and transparency from the Disability Fund Management Committees (DFMCs) and the District Assemblies as a whole. This has encouraged the PWD who were not members of GFD to join the organisation. He indicated that a well structured and user friendly application template form was provided across all districts to make it easier for PWDs including those in the rural areas to access the Fund and eliminates abled people from unduly benefitting from the fund. The Form is available at the District Social Welfare Department and GFD Offices, and it is free. He said monitoring and evaluation template was developed to aid the DFMC’s undertake regular monitoring visits. The monitoring visits would help the DFMCs to ascertain how the funds were used by the beneficiaries. The objectives of the project was to enhance the knowledge of the beneficiary PWD community on the provisions of the guidelines for disbursement and management of the (DACF) for (PWD) and strengthen transparency and accountability through effective monitoring systems. Presenting on the challenges he added that, even though the project reap a lot of successes, there are a few challenges we need to highlight: access to vital information that could help in the success of the project were denied by the Assemblies. In this case we call for the immediate passage of the Right to Information Bill (RTI) into law by the Parliament of Ghana and some districts are still not using some of the templates developed Some submissions made by stakeholders during the event includes, the unavailability of some government officials during some of the training workshop, empower the PWDs to demand accountability and regular monitoring by the DFMCs, involve the media at the district level of the project implementation, a lot more efforts should be made to involve all stakeholders and committee members for capacity building trainings. They urged TEERE and the GFD to do serious networking at the district level and asked if is possible to make the templates compulsory by the end of the year? This was made possible with funding from the French Embassy in Ghana / Ambassade de France au Ghana
