Disability advocates in Ghana say the country is losing measurable economic value by shutting persons with disabilities out of jobs, finance and enterprise, not merely failing a social duty.
That argument runs through interviews published by The High Street Journal with two prominent figures in the disability community, entrepreneur Richard Offei and rights advocate Yaw Ofori-Debra. Both reject the long held framing of disability as a welfare matter and recast it as a question of productivity.
Offei, a former captain of Ghana’s national amputee football team who lost a leg in a motor accident at 18, has built a disability centred business. According to The High Street Journal, his Agynkwa Company produces a fruit beverage certified by the Food and Drugs Authority and aims to employ more than 3,000 persons with disabilities across production, branding and distribution.
The road there exposed the barriers he wants dismantled. He told the publication that banks treat disabled applicants with suspicion, and that many public offices lack lifts, forcing applicants to struggle upstairs simply to register a business. He recalled a 2023 approach to the Ghana Enterprises Agency where, he said, officials implied state funding was not meant for persons with disabilities.
Ofori-Debra, a former president of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations and the Ghana Blind Union who serves as second vice president of the World Blind Union, locates the deeper problem in attitudes rather than ramps. Ghana passed a Disability Act in 2006, he notes, yet the officials meant to enforce inclusion often become the obstacle. His prescription is blunt. “Persons with disabilities do not need charity,” he told The High Street Journal, calling instead for employment quotas, accessible infrastructure and investment in disability enterprise.
The economic stakes are real. The World Bank and the International Labour Organisation have long warned that excluding disabled people from work lowers productivity and deepens dependency. Advocates say the effect shows in Ghana through graduates who wait years for jobs, households stretched by lost income, and capable people pushed onto the streets to survive.
Offei credits support from figures such as Pierre Frank Laporte, who served as the World Bank’s country director for Ghana until early 2025, with strengthening advocacy for disability enterprise. Both men argue that Ghana’s drive for industrialisation and job creation will fall short unless the economy is redesigned to include every citizen.
The question, they suggest, is no longer whether persons with disabilities can contribute, but whether the systems around them will let them.
