PROMOTING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE MANAGEMENT,DISBURSEMENT PROCEDURES AND UTILIZATION OF THE 3% DISTRICT ASSEMBLY COMMON FUND ALLOCATED TO PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES.

Background of Project!

In the 2010 population, there were 39,924 persons with disabilities in the Upper East Region. Women make up a majority of 51% representing 20,344 of all PWDs whiles a majority (85.2%) of all the population of PWDs live in rural areas. Persons with disability are marginalized and suffer from discrimination on account of their disability status. They are mostly regarded as less productive and not capable of contributing to development compared to their able counterparts. This situation replicates itself across the country. As a result the 1992 constitution made provisions to cater for the economic, political and social inclusion of all PWDs across the country in the local government system. As part of efforts to empower Persons with Disabilities, the Government of Ghana in 2005, introduced the Disability Fund (currently 3%) which is deducted from the District Assembly Common Fund and paid to a separate account under the District Assembly.

The Disability Fund seeks to support income generating activities as a means of economic empowerment; provide educational support; build the capacity of OPWDs in the districts to enable them to advocate and assert their rights and undertake awareness raising and sensitization on disability issues, and to support access to technical aids and other assistive devices and equipment. The fund over the years has not achieved its intended purpose because of the following problems we identified in the current Management, Disbursement Procedures and utilization of the Fund. These problems are as follows;

• Local districts have institutionalized the bad practice of persistently borrowing from the DACF allocation to PWDs for other projects that the fund is not appropriated for. It must also be noted that these misappropriations of the fund are not presented and approved by the District General Assembly to be approved through duly passed resolutions. The lack of any properly documented resolutions on the terms of borrowing the District Assembly Management are able to go scout free in defaulting in their debt to the DACF PWDs Fund. Project Coordinator
• Ineffective financial management structures to ensure accountability and transparency in the management of the fund because there are no established mechanisms in place in the Assemblies to check how the fund is being managed. For example, there are no quarterly reports from either Management of the Assembly or the Disability Fund Management Committee for members to know the status of the fund. In this situation, the Assembly management is able to misappropriate the funds without any traces.
• Lack of knowledge on the Provisions of the guidelines for the disbursement and management of the DACF for PWDs or the exploitation of the gap or no proper enforcement and sanctions to defaulting District Assemblies. Most fund management committee members and stakeholders do not have knowledge of the guidelines hence use their discretion in the fund application or exploit the loopholes of no prescribed sanction. The unavailability of this document in disability friendly forms and in English only considering illiteracy rate amongst PWDs is also a challenge.
• Poor mechanism for funds disbursement for example is that disbursements are made on the table to beneficiaries. The human interfaces in the physical cash distribution have created avenues for extorsion and misappropriation of funds since this system cannot guarantee that funds were given to deserving beneficiaries. This system has also made capturing the fund’s account revenue and expenditure in District Assembly audited accounts difficult.
• Weak monitoring of funds utilization. The guideline mandates the NCPD, GFD Committee, District Assembly and the Department of Social Welfare at the local level monitor and supervise the utilization of the funds. However, these institutions have not been able to carry out their mandate because of lack of resources and monitoring mechanisms. For instance, the GFD though mandated has not been allocated any resource to conduct regular monitoring and reporting to the fund management on reviews or reforms deemed fit. The lack of monitoring has resulted in some beneficiaries of the fund themselves not using the funds for its intended purposes.
• Lack of advocacy skills among the leadership of PWDs to demand for accountability. The leadership of the various Organizations of Persons with Disability ought to serve as a major check on the management of the fund and the district to ensure transparency and accountability. Unfortunately, the high illiteracy rate amongst the PWDs permeates to its leadership. Clearly the leadership of PWDs in the various districts needs skills to demand accountability from the Assemblies on the disability funds. Hence the fund management has the leeway to misappropriate the funds without accounting to intended beneficiaries.

Implementation Strategies

Our first approach is to work with these organisations to bring sanity into the management and disbursement of the Disability Fund. This would inure to the benefit of persons with disability and PWD organisations (NCPD and GFD) who have an oversight over this fund.

TEERE’s partnership with the Regional Office of Ghana Federation of Disabilities (GFD), National Association of Local Government Authorities of Ghana (NALAG) and the District Assemblies would provide a strong platform to ensure effective monitoring and implementation of the project. This approach we have adopted would ensure continuity and sustainability of the project outcomes.

Secondly, providing investment education to the beneficiaries would equip them with investment skills which would let them put the Funds into ventures that would provide them with a sustainable livelihood.