By Bampia James Bundu
Executive Secretary at the National Commission for Persons with Disability, Janet Robinson, has said that most of the issues discussed in the Disability Act are not practically incorporated.
While addressing the challenges of the Commission, at an ENCISS-organised forum in Freetown, Robinson said that persons with disability were still deprived of facilities due them.
She explained such persons were still being asked out of universities because they could not afford their fees and were being forced to pay medical expenses in government hospitals where those facilities were meant to be free.
She complained that it was very challenging to run the commission because persons with disability were expecting most of their problems to be solved after the establishment of the commission.
Robinson called on all to create a favorable atmosphere for people with disability as “any able-bodied person is a candidate for disability.”
But the Minister of social welfare, Moijueh Kaikai said the executive secretary was new in the commission and needed to stabilize.
“The ministry of education has said that it only needs a letter of acceptance from a disabled person and without interviewing them, they are given government scholarship to enter the university,” he claimed.
He said that at district level the process was being undermined by chiefdom authorities who he alleged would send in names of able-bodied people for disability opportunities.
“We were able to establish this after a thorough verification of the process at those levels. That is why we feel people with disability should go straight to the ministry in Freetown, present their letters of acceptance and get their scholarship processed,” he said.
The minister said they only provide oversight to institutions such as the disability commission and non-governmental organisations dealing with disability issues.
