GIFEC appeals MDAs to sustain employment project

Mr Kofi Attor, the Administrator of the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), has appealed to Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to supervise and sustain the disability employment project to offer livelihood opportunities to people with disabilities in their localities.

He said the fund had started piloting the project in all the 10 regional capitals and had set up trading booths for people with disabilities to sell credit units for telecommunication networks and it was the responsibility of the MMDAs to supervise them.

Mr Attor made the appeal at the closing session of a three-day training workshop on the disability employment project of the fund in Sunyani on Thursday.

It was attended by the Regional Heads of the Department of Social Welfare, and chairpersons of the Social Services sub-committee of some selected MMDAs in the country.

Mr Attor said GIFEC would be in a position to extend the pilot project to cover other districts depending on the success story and advised the beneficiaries to manage them well.

Mr Martin Amoani, Assistant Corporate Affairs Manager of GEFEC, said beneficiaries of the pilot project selected through the support of the Department of Social Welfare, and the Disability Council.

He said very soon the fund would rollout other income generating opportunities and advised people with disabilities who had not registered with the association of the disabled to do so to benefit from the project and other support from the fund.

The GIFEC was established in 2004 as an agency of the Ministry of Communications to facilitate the spread of Information and Communication Technology and its use in the unserved and underserved communities in the country.

It is helping to promote research and reading culture, through ICT use, thereby empowering people in rural communities to directly participate in development and decision-making processes at local and national levels.