TQM report,
The National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD) have read out their what they are doing and their plans in order to achieve their mandate.
Mr James Lalu, Executive Secretary, NCPWD while making his speech on Wednesday in Abuja during a stakeholders’ meeting organised by Center for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) to commemorate the 2nd Anniversary of the National Disability Act.
He said that the commission visit to Mr. President recently is to further gain his support to further charge Ministries and Agencies to implement the act work with the commission to enhance the opportunities of persons with disabilities in area of employment and in policies and programmes.
Mr. Lalu informed that the Commission have been meeting with key ministries, agencies and organizations to explore ways the commission can work with them for the benefit of persons with disabilities.
“This morning, we meet the CCECC Boss and he made commitment of assisting to improve access to public infrastructures”.
“We are also working to see how PWDs can be mainstream in the Federal Character Commission and we are working with the Presidency to see that meeting the 5% employment opportunities for PWDs is included in the Federal Government contract criteria, if you do not have at least 5% of workforce being PWDs, you will not have a federal government contract. We are working on it, if we succeed, it will increase significantly the employment opportunities of PWDs”
“We will be working with state governors and we are going to establish offices in the six political zones of the country to bring the commission closer to the people at the zones. They can go to the zonal offices or state offices if some state governors accept to create offices for the commission to report their cases”.
Mr. Lalu stated that the commission would reserve 60 to 70 percent employment opportunities in the Abuja and zonal offices for PWDs. People should understand that the commission is for PWDs so a greater number of the employment must go to PWDs. Nothing about us without us.
“Section 29 of the act provides that five per cent employment be reserved across all sectors for PWDs both in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), but sadly there has been no compliance since the passage of the law.
“We would adopt various strategies to achieve the implementation of section 29 which focuses on employment for PWDs and we believe that if we continue to engage the line MDAs will improve,” he said.
“The commission would continue to explore opportunity for PWDs both the skilled and unskilled PWDs to enhance their livelihood, whatever belong to PWDs, we will go and get” he added.
We will carry along other clusters of disability and we will put mechanism in place to reach those in the rural area.
Mr. Lalu lauded CCD for putting the commemoration of the 2nd Anniversary of the passage of the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018 and appealed that next year, the commission would be a partner at the event not a guest.
“The event was aimed at gathering public opinions, suggestions and contributions from Nigerians, especially the disability community towards effective discharge of the duties of the commission and implementation of the act” he added.
He recognized the outstanding contributions of CCD towards enactment of the Disability Act and the establishment of the commission.
“The establishment of the commission has brought a very high expectation from the disability community across the country and it is time for disability community to work together support the commission to succeed. The Commission is not for one person rather for disability community so every organization is high respected and their opinion valued, come and share your ideas with the commission”
“That is why we are set to organise forums like this to share our experience and gather helpful contributions for the functioning and establishment of our zonal offices across the six geopolitical zones,” he added.
He urged CCD to take the lead and unify other disability organizations to sustain this yearly celebration.
Lalu said that the commission would collaborate with CCD to make the celebration an annual event, which would form an accountability forum to assess the commission and the level of implementation of the provisions of the act annually.
