The leadership of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD) in Ada East has issued a fierce rebuttal to the Assembly’s controversial final investigative report, disputing its claim that a legitimate disbursement occurred in December 2025.
In its rewritten final report, the ad-hoc committee — now led by Presiding Member Hon. Philip Tetteh Atchia after private meetings with the Assembly Administration — changed its earlier position that “no legitimate payment was made” and called its own previous conclusion “too categorical”.
However, in a strong response, the Ada East GFD has pointed out four clear legal, procedural, and financial flaws that prove the committee’s report is false and not credible.
1. The Quorum Question: How Did Three Out of Five Equal Four?
The GFD points out that under the national guidelines governing the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) for Persons with Disabilities, disbursement is not a side project, it is the very apex and culmination of the Disability Fund Management Committee’s (DFMC) mandate.
Statutorily, the Ada East DFMC comprises five members:
- The Chairperson of the Assembly’s Social Services Sub-Committee;
- The District Director of Social Welfare (Secretary);
- A Representative of the National Council on Persons with Disabilities (NCPD); and
- Two representatives of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD), one of whom is the chairman of the committee.
Under the rules, a minimum of four out of five members is required to form a valid quorum to conduct official business, especially a public disbursement exercise.
The GFD revealed that on December 23, 2025, when the controversial disbursement was staged, both GFD representatives staged a complete boycott of the event, having discovered that the approved cash grants had been illegally swapped for physical commodities by the administration.
“If two GFD representatives did not take part in the exercise, then only three members could have been present at most,” the Federation said. “How can three out of five form a quorum? Without a quorum, no legal meeting or payment could have happened. So it is impossible to claim that a proper payment was made.”
2. Where Did the GH₵9,000 Disbursement Budget Go?
The GFD also raised concerns about GH₵9,000 approved to organise the December 2025 disbursement.
While the Assembly and the ad-hoc committee keep debating whether money was withdrawn to pay the illegal supplier, Corbilee Enterprise, no one has accounted for the GH₵9,000.
The Federation is demanding immediate answers:
- Was the GH₵9,000 administrative budget withdrawn from the Disability Fund bank account?
- Who authorised the Payment Voucher (PV) and who cashed the cheque?
- Where is the expenditure statement, receipts, and returns showing how this money was spent on an event where beneficiaries boycotted and rejected spoiled fish and headgears?
To date, neither the initial investigation nor the sanitised final report contains a single line accounting for this GH₵9,000 sum.
3. The Ghost Disbursement Report
Under the National Guidelines for the Management and Disbursement of the DACF for PWDs, the DFMC Secretariat is legally required to compile and submit a comprehensive Disbursement Report within two weeks of any distribution exercise.
This report must capture:
- Signed store-issued vouchers and beneficiary acknowledgement forms;
- Reconciled expenditure returns;
- High-resolution photographic evidence of handover; and
- Minutes of the post-disbursement review meeting.
The GFD noted that almost ten months after the botched December 2025 exercise, no official disbursement report exists on the Assembly’s records.
“If the ad-hoc committee claims that a disbursement indeed occurred, where is the statutory disbursement report mandated by national guidelines?” the GFD quizzed. “How can an investigative committee validate an exercise that generated no legitimate administrative report?”
4. An Open Confession of Incompetence
The GFD reserved its sharpest criticism for Pages 6 and 7 of the Final Report, where the committee said it could not confirm the fraud due to lack of documents, then surprisingly recommended that the Assembly Administration should investigate itself and decide its own punishment.
“What then was the work of the investigation committee?” the GFD asked in shock.
“An investigative body with the full backing of the General Assembly had the power to request payment vouchers, check Ada Rural Bank statements, call the Procurement Officer who boycotted them, and demand invoices from Corbilee Enterprise. Saying you could not find the documents is a clear sign of incompetence — or even deliberate cover-up.”
The Federation concluded that by handing over its work to the same administration it was supposed to investigate, the Presiding Member’s committee did not only fail persons with disabilities, but also staged a clear cover-up.
Next Line of Action
The Ada East GFD reiterated that it stands by its total rejection of the compromised final report.
Leadership confirmed that it is concluding wide consultations with the regional and national secretariats, and civil society coalitions to roll out a series of actions aimed at compelling the Auditor-General and the Office of the Special Prosecutor to step in and rescue the Ada East Disability Fund from administrative capture.
SOURCE: DisabilityNewsGH.com
