As a follow up to the recent conditional cash transfer to persons with Disabilities to cushion the effects of COVID-19 in the community of PWDs, the Executive Secretary, National Commission for Persons With Disabilities, Mr. James David Lalu has hinted that sharing data of PWDs with the National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office will aid substantive growth among persons with disabilities.
He made this disclosure while paying a courtesy visit to the office of the National Coordinator today 10th January, 2022.
Lalu seized the occasion to inform the meeting of the hitches being experienced by persons with disabilities in the process of Cash transfer. He said about 1,380 of the PWDs captured in the recent data capturing exercise conducted by NCPWD are yet to receive the funds.
He therefore, appreciated NASSCO for their role in alleviating hardship on the poor and vulnerable Nigerians especially PWDs.
Speaking further, the ES elaborated that the Commission has constituted a standard Data capture and processing center where PWDs will be issued identity Cards for proper identification irrespective of the clusters they belong in the society.
He equally said certicates of disability will be issued to PWDs in order to gain proper inclusion into government policies and programmes.
In his welcome remarks, the National Coordinator NASSCO, Mr. Iorta Apera expressed optimism at the display of zeal by the ES in pursuit of the well-being of Persons with Disabilities.
He said the data compiled by the Commission still remains the most comprehensive so far in the history of disability reports in Nigeria and he promised to support sharing of information between the two organizations.
Iorta also underpinned the importance of organizing a National Dialogue on Disability to address the varying covert degrees of disabilities embedded in persons that are yet unpublicized.
According to him, the World Health Organization (WHO) has 13 concepts for defining disabilities which are not yet carried in the Nigerian perspective. He cited the levels of Autism with their causes as part of the subject that will form the discourse.
The NASSCO boss informed of the plan to present the NCPWD with computers to foster data sharing and management for the overall interest of Persons With Disabilities. He gave the rationale that PWDs constitute 4% of the 45 million poor and vulnerable Nigerians spread across the 36 States and the FCT.
