A coalition of unemployed graduates with disabilities has threatened to resume picketing after September 15 if the government fails to provide a concrete plan to employ qualified persons with disabilities.
The Coalition of Unemployed Graduates with Disabilities said its earlier ultimatum to the government had expired without a satisfactory roadmap for addressing the unemployment crisis facing tertiary-educated persons with disabilities.
“We are not asking for charity, we are demanding our fundamental right to work,” the coalition said in a petition to Parliament’s Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin.
The group is demanding the immediate recruitment of about 400 unemployed tertiary-educated persons with disabilities into the public sector, as well as the enforcement of employment quotas and incentives for private employers who recruit persons with disabilities.
It is also calling for a policy directive reserving a specific percentage of recruitment in Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies and state-owned enterprises for qualified persons with disabilities.
The coalition said it had previously engaged the Ministers for Gender, Children and Social Protection and Employment and Labour Relations, but claimed those engagements had not produced a substantive solution.
It also cited a recent recruitment exercise by the Ghana Education Service as evidence of what it described as systemic exclusion.
The coalition cited Article 29 of the 1992 Constitution, the Persons with Disability Act, 2006 (Act 715), and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as the legal basis for its demands.
“Our disability is not an inability; it is a unique perspective that can enrich our national workforce,” the group said.
According to the coalition, it submitted a list of 200 qualified potential teachers in collaboration with the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations during the recruitment of 7,000 teachers, but none of its nominees was selected.
The group said it had also staged demonstrations and picketing, including a recent protest at Jubilee House, where it claimed government officials promised to absorb some of its members into the public sector.
The protesters temporarily suspended their action after being assured that their leadership would meet President John Dramani Mahama to find a solution. However, the coalition said subsequent attempts to reach the presidential staffer who received its petition had gone unanswered.
“If this approach does not yield any positive result, there will be another crazy picketing after the 15th of this month which will never be suspended until our demands are met,” the petition said.
Source: Citi Newsroom
