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The Chief Executive Officer of Youth Employment Agency (YEA), Vincent Kuagbenu, has defied President John Mahama’s order to elevate Mr. Jacob Atule Adongo, from the Director of Disability and Gender Unit to Deputy Chief Executive of the Agency.

Subsequently, he has refused to fix some 14 People with Disabilities (PWD) who were interviewed for employment positions, just before Kobby Acheampong’s was reshuffled to Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC).

Mr. Kuagbenu was said to have told two members of the 14 PWDs; including Mr. Adongo in the face that he could not work with PWDs because they were incompetent- a complete disregard to the President.

President Mahama, on 9th September 2015 in a directive to the Board of YEA referred to the Public Services Commission for rectification on the appointment of Mr. Adongo as the Deputy Chief Executive of the Agency.

Since that time, the board, reportedly on the advice of Mr. Kuagbenu has been dragging its feet in obeying the President’s order, even after the Minister of Employment, Haruna Iddrisu wrote on 20th October 2015, to remind the YEA board of the appointment of Mr. Adongo by the President.

The Minister wrote; “I refer to letter No. SCR/A dated 9th, September, 2015 from the office of the President appointing Mr. Jacob Atule Adongo, Head of the Disability and Gender Desk at the Youth Employment Agency as Deputy Chief Executive officer of the Agency”.

“In ensuring that the President’s directive is effected in accordance with Article 195 (1) of the 1992 Constitution that ‘the power to appoint persons to hold or to act in an office is on the advice of the governing Board of the Institution concerned given in consultation with the Public Services Commission’ we refer the nomination to the YEA Board to advise on the matter”, the letter continued.

Article 11 of the 1992 Constitution from where the Minister derived his directive, states that; the Minister may give directives on matters of policies consisting with the matters of this Act to the Board and the Board may comply. 

But that seem not to be the case, as, Mr. Kuagbenu is alleged to have shown pure hatred for Mr. Adongo, by taking away his official car, his personal assistant without his knowledge and asking him to sign the log in book which is not visually impaired friendly.

Taking away his personal assistant without a replacement was a complete flout of Act 715 of the PWDs, act of 2006 and the Public Service Act which stipulates that, an employer who engages the services of a PWD is mandated to provide a support staff as well as create an enabling environment for the smooth and effective performance of his or her work, a source told this paper.

After refusing to make the log-in book accessible to him, he was queried for not being able to sign even though he had complained that he was not conversant with the current format.

This prompted Mr. Adongo to notify the board Chairman of YEA in a petition enumerating the deliberate attempts by supposed powers that be to undermine his person but the board is yet to respond to his petition since he wrote to them on 12th November 2015.

His letter, intercepted by New Crusading GUIDE read in part as; “I wish to bring to the notice of this esteem board various happenings in my office which have the ultimate aim of undermining and incapacitating me further, added to my disability in order to render me ineffective and incompetent just to justify a personal bias the CEO, Mr. Kuagbenu holds of Persons With Disability (PWDs)”.

Mr. Adongo outlined how he had been treated unfairly ever since the President appointed him to rise to the Deputy Chief Executive.

Mr. Kuagbenu’s actions and inactions has angered 100 more PWDs who are ready to explode with a demonstration to register their grievances in strongest way, following the no response to series of petitions to the Chief of Staff.

They previously tried once but the Minister of Employment talked them into cancelling it, promising a resolution of their issues.

Isaac Yeboah Afari, the Secretary of the PWD group in an interview with this reporter called for the head of Mr. Vincent Kuagbenu for his comments and complete hatred for PWDs.

He asked YEA and Ghana Education Service to immediately release their employment letters and for government to come out with an employment policy to include PWDs given that apart from the 14, which steps have been taken to get them employed, there were about 100 PWDs who have graduated from tertiary Institutions and are unemployed.

Meanwhile, calls to Mr. Vincent Kuagbenu to respond to the story were not answered. A text message from this reporter to respond to the allegations had not been replied as at the time of going to press yesterday.