Minister inaugurates Technical Committee to review Disability Act

The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Cynthia Morrison, on Friday inaugurated a technical committee to review the persons with disabilities Act, 2006 (Act 715) to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability.

The Committee, set up by the National Council of Persons with Disabilities, will work together with consultants to prepare the regulation to accompany the Act 715 and consider the proposed amendment submitted by the organisations of persons with disability.

Mrs Morrison charged the members of the Committee to come up with realistic amendments that were achievable, “Do not put just anything on paper to impress, make sure you put together a document that can be achieved".

Members of the committee include a representative from the Sector Ministry and those of the Ministries of Local Government and Rural Development; Health; and Justice.

Other representatives are from the Ghana Health Service; Department of Social Welfare; the Special Education Division of the Ghana Education Service and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice in the Judicial Service.

Other organisations represented on the committee are the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations; the Academia; Centre for Employment of Persons with Disability; Special Mothers Project; Child-Health- Paediatric Neuro-Disability Unit of the Accra Regional Hospital; Department of Audiology, Speech and Language Therapy; Centre for Disability and Rehabilitation Studies and the Executive Secretary of the National Council of Persons with Disabilities.

Dr Samuel Kaba Akoriyea, Head of Institutional Care Division of the Ghana Health Service, who chairs the Committee, pledged his commitment to ensure that it worked to accomplish its mandate.

“We all need to be concerned about disability because there is a very thin line between disability and ability,” he said.

Ms Esther Ekua Gyamfi, Executive Secretary of the National Council of Persons with Disabilities, said the committee would work within a time frame to submit the reviewed Act and its accompanying Legislative Instrument to Parliament by April 2020.