The Zambia Disability HIV and AIDS Human Rights Programme says many people who were given the K1 million by government yesterday were not the real beneficiaries.
The Organisation has predicted that the disabled will again go back to the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services with force to demand their terminal benefits.
Organisation Programme Director, Elijah Ngwale said many people who benefited from the money were beggars from the streets of Lusaka who took advantage of the protest to demand cash from government.
Mr Ngwale told ZANIS in an interview in Lusaka today that genuine people will now be forced to go back to the minister to demand their dues after their friends were given by the minister yesterday.
He has meanwhile commended government for giving people with disabilities money, but advised the state to use a good channel in settling scores with the disabled next time.
He said government should have used a better way of paying the disabled rather than giving without record, adding that this made many people to infuse themselves.
Mr Ngwale said the people who had previously demonstrated wanted the terminal benefits they worked for but government instead gave the wrong people.
He has since called on government to form a task force that would be dealing with cross-cutting issues concerning persons with disabilities in the country.
He further suggested that the same task force should also help to revamp the Zambia Agency for Persons with Disability (ZAPD) and look at retirement packages for persons with disabilities.
Mr Ngwale has further appealed to parliament to ratify the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities which was signed in 2007 but has remained untouched since then.
He said this will help address the many challenges persons with disabilities are facing in the country.
Government yesterday gave K1 million each to persons with disabilities who on Tuesday demonstrated at State house.
ZANIS
But why?
jokes
# 1 I hope you know that Zambian are doing the opposite. This is not a surprise to me. Chiluba used to call cadres to state house for partying instead of calling ministers and their deputies.
But why do differently abled persons want to spend their lives on the street when they have the ability to earn decent lives differently and sensibly?
another dimension to the Zambian circus
This is so sad….Just thank God for giving us such strong immune systems!
#4 Lusaka, I have been at loggerheads with a colleague over the use of the term “differently abled” as opposed to the normal “disabled”. How bad will it be to say disabled instead of differently abled? When the term “differently abled” is used, with reference to what?
But ku Zedi kula dabwisha.
What is the reason for paying the disabled when they have not done any job? Does it mean that we should all go to demonstrate at the gates of state house to get social security benefits?
This is a big joke especially that the medical personnel are asking for a reasonaqble salary increment but the government says it has no money.
Can RB enquire from his chinese investors the meaning of the proverb, “Give someone a fish and they eat for a day. Teach someone to fish and they eat for a lifetime.”
i also benefitted from this money
The money was given out without record? This sounds suspicious.
Mule,
Nowadays we dont even need to go to theatres to watch zambian comedy.every morning there is a politician doing something insane.imagine the whole minister dishing out millions to wrong people.one wonders where he even got the cash from.so if you come and read it in the AG’s report.it will indicate as may k250,000,000 yet the character only distributed k25000,000 wrongly but with intent.i don’t know weather myopic people like SENIOR CITIZEN see this circus as normal
This is not the way you run a social grant. Be serious next week all the unemployed will come and toyi toyi ninshi mwabofolesha. You can’t be seroius, ninshi kanshi tamutwipushisha esp fwebafishiba ifi fintu or make us ministers na baice bandi Matworld na Walai
That was great guys…..you should be going there every month. This is what we say that gov t has mony.
Hello from sunburnt Australia,
as far as I know there is only one psychiatrist in
Zambia,is this accurate?