After five months of no results since their first action to draw the attention of state authorities to their plight, the Association of Unemployed Graduates with Disabilities, picketed five ministries from Monday, May 22 to Wednesday, May 24, 2023, in Accra to demand employment.
The unemployed graduates, numbering 33 with various disability types, picketed the Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Protection, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, and the Ministry of Local Government, to press home their demand for job opportunities.
At the Social Protection Ministry, some of the leaders of the group were arrested and detained at the Ministries Police Station for allegedly inciting their followers to cause trouble, a claim the leaders denied.
According to the Police, the notice the group served them about the picketing did not state that they would be singing during the event or entering the premises of the Social Protection Ministry. And so, an attempt to enter the compound of the ministry with singing was deemed as inciting their members to cause trouble, hence their arrest.
It took the intervention of the Social Protection Minister, Hon. Lariba Zuweira Abudu, to get them released.
At a round table discussion with the leaders after the incident, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Zuweira Abudu, told them that she was already aware of their concerns and was taking steps to address them.
According to her, discussions on the matter had reached the highest level and assured them of a positive result soon.
She took the CVs and related documents of those who had theirs present and promised to make a case for them at the next cabinet meeting on June 1, 2023.
Hon. Zuweira Abudu asked them to follow up with her after the first week of June.
The excuse of state agencies over the years, according to the group, has been that they did not have clearance from the Ministry of Finance to employ new jobseekers. And so, the group on Tuesday, May 23, picketed the ministry with the aim to secure a clearance letter for the agencies.
However, the Finance Ministry’s officials told them that clearance is only given upon a request by an employing agency or Ministry. It was, therefore, suggested to them to go back to agencies.
The jobseekers later moved to the Ministry of Education where they were told that the employment opportunities available currently are for diploma holders.
The Deputy Director of Management and Services at the ministry disclosed that the employment of diploma holders would end somewhere in the second week of June, after which opportunities would be opened to degree holders.
He assured them that the ministry would ensure that those of them who qualified for the jobs available would be given priority.
On Wednesday, they were at the Ministry of Local Government and the Ministry of Employment, where their contacts were taken with the promise to call them anytime a door of opportunity opens.
At the Local Government Ministry, they were advised to contact the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD), since the ministry works closely with the organisation for the employment of persons with disabilities.
The desperate jobseekers finally made a stop at the GFD, where they urged the Federation to continue the fight for them at a brief meeting.
The leader of the group, Master Prosper Amenyor Deku told DisabilityNewsGH that they were satisfied with the outcome of the exercise.
He was of the view that their action had sent a strong signal to the state agencies that persons with disabilities could not be taken for granted anymore.
On December 5 to December 7, 2022, the unemployed disabled graduates who said they were frustrated by the indifference of the state agencies mandated to seek the well-being of persons with disabilities in the country, picketed the Presidency, the Social Protection, and Employment and Labour Relations Ministries, as well as the National Council on Persons with Disabilities and GFD.
A meeting was later held with them at the Employment Ministry where they were promised that action would be taken on their request.
It has been five months already and Mr. deku said, no action had been taken and that necessitated the second picketing.
The group is made up of over one hundred young men and women with disabilities who graduated from various universities in the country since 2018.
SOURCE: DisabilityNewsGH.com
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