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The Ghana Parliament passed the Persons with Disability Bill on June 23rd 2006. The Bill is aimed at enabling disabled people to “enjoy rights enshrined in the Constitution (Article 29 (8)) with the view to improving their living standards and mainstreaming their activities”. 

The Bill which was first drafted in 2002 and been through up to 60 amendments during this 4 year period, finally went through with the blessing of both the majority and minority members of Parliament. The Bill aims to provide disabled people with:

• Accessibility to all public places
• Equal employment opportunities
• Transportation at free or reduced costs
• Free, general and specialist medical care
• The creation of desks specifically for disabled people at employment centres
• A National Council on Persons With Disability to oversee the implementation of national programmes aimed at disabled people

As you can imagine this will not happen overnight, a great deal of work needs to be done to achieve all the aims of the Bill, so it has been passed with a 10-year transition period.

The parliamentary committee on employment, social welfare and state enterprises has said that the passing of this Bill, will enable Ghana to harness the human capacity of the nation for accelerated development and make the Millennium Development Goal target of halving world poverty by 2015 a reality. 

With ADD’s support disabled people’s organisations have worked tirelessly throughout the 4 years to keep the Disability Bill on the political agenda – never giving up the belief that this Bill would be passed.

In 2005, Ghana Federation of the Disabled successfully secured a two-year grant of £80,000 from the Department for International Development’s “Rights and Voice Initiative” which meant they were able to carry out consultations, seminars and awareness raising activities on the national disability policy and the draft Bill. 

ADD also helped disabled people’s organisations in the three northern regions to organise workshops to raise their members’ awareness of the Disability Bill and to organise “Meet the Press” events to let journalists know about the draft Bill.  As a result, the media played a huge part in raising awareness of the Bill and during the time it took to pass, more than 40 media articles were published. 

The Pen, a national newspaper, approached ADD because they were interested in covering disability issues and the first article was an interview with ADD Country Representative Felix Dery appeared in the December 3rd edition, coinciding with International Disability Day, titled “People’s Attitude towards Disabled Persons Must Change”. 

Regular articles in The Disability Tribune were vital in enabling disabled people to access and share information about the Disability Bill.  The Daily Graphic quoted the President of Ghana:  “We’ll implement Disability Bill despite high cost”.  Another newspaper wrote: “The passage of the Disability Bill is long overdue”.

Over the years disabled people’s organisations kept up the profile of the Disability Bill through annual celebrations such as International Disability Day and Human Rights Day.  In fact, at the International

Disability Day celebrations in 2005 the Minister of Manpower Development and Employment confirmed the government’s commitment to disability issues, and declared the year 2006 as “Year of Action on Disability”. 

Following the passing of the Disability Bill ADD’s pokesman in Accra, Charles Appiagyei, was invited to join the Hon. Mrs Frema Osei Opare, Member of Parliament and Deputy Minister for the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment, Mr Kojo Asante, Legal and Governance Research Officer from the Centre for Democracy and Development and Dr Koray of the Attorney Generals Department to a discussion panel on a high profile radio programme, Front Page.  The two-hour programme hosted by Mt Kwaku Sakyi Addo covers current hot issues and invites listeners to call in – many calls and text messages were received from all over Ghana, commending the disability movement for their hard work and the government for being pro-active.  Other people shared positive experiences of working with disabled people, stressing the need for social attitudinal change.   

Afterwards the Ghana Federation of the Disabled held a press conference to thank parliament and the Ministry of Manpower Development for working tirelessly to make the passage of the Disability Bill a reality.

“Congratulations to all who contributed to this success story. Now the real work begins – its implementation.”  Gertrude Fefoame