TQM report,
Office of the Head of Service of the Federation (OHSF) on Friday in Abuja brought together some persons with disabilities in the Federal Civil Service alongside their staff to carry out validation of Baseline Survey of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in the Federal Civil Service.
The survey was conducted by The Albino Foundation in 2019 with support of OHSF to ascertain the disaggregated data of employees with disabilities in the Federal Civil Service, understand better the issues and challenges faced by employees with disabilities in the Federal Civil Service, proffer solutions to the identified challenges, facilitate adequate planning and provision of good welfare environment for employees with disabilities, establish an inclusive culture in the Federal Civil Service.
The survey was projected to achieve the following outcome, a. Facilitate the development of a policy and implementation guidelines that will improve lives and work-related safety for employees with disabilities and those without disabilities in Federal Civil Service, b. Ensure gender balance, access to better working environment and inclusion of PWDs in Federal Civil Service and c. Improve accessibility of structures of the government offices under Federal Civil Service.
In some of the findings, many PWDs faced most discrimination on public transportation which is grossly unstructured by government standards, and certainly not friendly to persons with disabilities and they are also facing discrimination at the workplace (42%), 7 in 10 PWDs do think that Federal Civil Service does not operate an open policy that gives everyone including PWDs equal opportunity and 65% of the respondent have faced one form of discrimination that is demoralizing and 56% feels that these discrimination makes them feel like they are less human.
On the flip side, respondents who are top management staff believes that there is a non-discriminatory policy for the rank and file in the various organs of the federal civil service. They agree that promotion is a function of merit and not determined by the physique of the personnel. They also claim that PWDs are accorded equal opportunity at work including right to promotion which is normally based on merit.
The researchers recommended that government implement existing laws and policies that are robust enough to address the plights of PWDs such as the Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018. The policies are in place but they are hardly being implemented therefore the MDAs should look deeply into all the policies that geared towards improving the lives of PWDs and begin to implement them diligently to give a sense of belonging to PWDs in the Federal Civil Service.
TQM learnt that the corrections identified, the rapporteurs and some selected PWDs will meet on a later date to affect the changes before the final document would be presented to the public.
Meanwhile, the participants adopted the report as a working document of the Office of Head of Service of the Federal Civil Service.
The Permanent Secretary sent in message assuring that the findings and recommendations of the report would be looked into and the office would develop policy from them to enhance inclusion of PWDs in the Federal Civil Service.
The survey is a pilot project that covered core ministries, extra ministerial departments within the FCT, Abuja alone under the aegis of the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation. The respondents were persons with disabilities (covering all clusters), permanent secretaries, directors, deputy directors, assistant directors, heads of departments, and disability desk officers where they exist.
The respondents were 352 and the 80% of the data enumerators were persons with disabilities, the details of the report uploaded here when it is finally made public.
