An attempt by the Ada East District Assembly to quietly push through a controversial Final Report on the Disability Common Fund scandal has collapsed after the local Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD) rejected the report and boycotted an emergency Fund Management Committee (FMC) meeting convened to approve it.
The emergency meeting was scheduled for Thursday, October 1 and Friday, October 2 to consider and adopt the Final Report of the ad-hoc committee that investigated the controversial December 2025 Disability Fund disbursement.
That disbursement was itself boycotted by the GFD after the Assembly Administration unilaterally substituted cash grants already approved by the FMC with items worth far less than the approved amounts.
DisabilityNewsGH.com can confirm that the two GFD representatives on the FMC, including the chairman of the committee, refused to attend the sitting, effectively denying the meeting both quorum and legitimacy.
Speaking to DisabilityNewsGH, Mr Theophilus Dugbatey Ayim, Secretary of the Ada East GFD and Chairman of the FMC, described the entire ad-hoc committee process as a “colossal waste of time” and a betrayal of Persons with Disabilities.
According to the Federation, beneficiaries — many of whom struggle with mobility — wasted time and energy attending hearings to recount how they were supplied with rotten tilapia, poultry feed, wigs and headgears that had no relation to their approved business plans, only for the committee to produce a report that shields the very officers responsible after months of delay.
“We cannot be part of a process that insults the dignity of disabled citizens. We reject the report in its entirety,” Mr Ayim stated.
The GFD’s rejection is not without basis. Analysis of documents available to DisabilityNewsGH shows the Final Report set for approval this week is a heavily watered-down version of the committee’s own initial findings.
The initial report, sighted by this portal, was blunt: it found that “no legitimate disbursement was done” and that the exercise was fraught with procurement breaches and fraud.
It had recommended that the District Social Welfare Officer, Mr Enoch Addy, must resign. However, that language has vanished from the Final Report.
In its place, the fraud finding was discarded as “too categorical,” the call for resignation was expunged, and beneficiary top-up figures were quietly altered — for example, victim Moses Obitsrey Agudey saw his recommended compensation slashed from GH¢1,000 to GH¢500 without explanation.
Most controversially, the Final Report introduced a new clause to pay the supplier a 20% VAT “bailout” on top of the contract sum — despite the documented supply of unwholesome goods and the fact that engaging a supplier itself contravenes the Disability Fund Guidelines, which require direct purchase of items for beneficiaries by the FMC, not through third-party suppliers.
The Federation further argues that the Final Report is addressed to the General Assembly that commissioned the probe, and therefore sees no basis for the FMC to be the body approving it.
It views any attempt by the remaining FMC members to approve it without GFD representation as illegal and procedurally flawed.
The Federation also questions how Mr Addy, who is Secretary to the FMC and the central subject of the investigation, is the same person directed to summon the emergency FMC meeting to approve the report that clears him.
The GFD confirmed it is holding internal consultations to determine its next line of action. Options on the table include mass picketing at the Ada East District Assembly, initiating legal action to quash the report, and a formal petition to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Auditor-General.
With its own chair boycotting, the FMC is left without moral authority to approve the report. Any approval without the GFD would be seen as an imposition by the Assembly against the very people the fund is meant to protect.
DisabilityNewsGH.com will publish the full details and damning comparison between the initial and final reports in our subsequent publications.
SOURCE: DisabilityNewsGH.com
