The Sunday News
DISABILITY is as old as humankind. It is not a disease but a condition and every able-bodied person has the potential to become disabled. But certain sections of society are not mindful of that, they treat people living with disabilities as outcasts, as people with no rights at all.
Sunday News Correspondent Dumisani Sibanda (DS) Dumisani Sibanda recently had an interview with disability activist and Zanu-PF Secretary for the Disabled and Disadvantaged in the Politburo Cde Joshua Malinga (JM) on the current status of the disabled in Zimbabwe.
Below are excerpts from the interview.
DS: You are on record saying you are worried about the current status of people living with disabilities, can you please explain your worry.
JM: People living with disabilities are 15 percent of the total population, you are talking of two million people. These people have no rights whatsoever and no privileges. We cannot exercise any rights even from a basic thing like education. We have no access to education. Buildings are built without us in mind and most community facilities are designed and planned without us in mind. We do not exist as far as the world of the able-bodied is concerned.
DS: But I am talking here to you and people say the ruling party is the one which informs Government policy and you are the Zanu-PF Secretary for the Disabled and Disadvantaged but you are the one complaining.
JM: I am not complaining but merely stating a fact.
DS: But you are the one who should be sorting these things out.
JM: Listen, I am also saying we have no mechanism to address the issues of people living with disabilities. It’s on the agenda, yes. But we don’t have that mechanism to deal with them. You know we did very well, we were the top country, we were the pioneers in disability issues. In 1980, we introduced disability in the Sadc, African Union, United Nations, we played a leading role in the Commonwealth, and our own President Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe played a leading role. We were the first country to have disability legislation in 1992. We pioneered that. But when everything collapsed in 1999, every gain we achieved in the area of disability collapsed absolutely. Listen, there is no sustainable budget for disability issues in this country. I understand the budget that has been allocated for disability issues in the national budget by Finance Minister (Cde Patrick) Chinamasa is not adequate.
When you budget for disability you must have in mind the idea that disability is a cross cutting development issue. It needs the attention of everybody. Every office, every department, every Government ministry, you should have a focal point on disability so that people living with disabilities can have access to all community services.
Even the department which deals with people living with disabilities is tucked away in a corner somewhere in the Ministry of Public Service, Social Welfare and Labour under the Department of Social Welfare.
DS: So do I understand it that you are saying it would be better if there was a separate ministry for disability issues like the war veterans have a ministry to specifically attend to their issues?
JM: No, I am not saying that it should be a stand alone ministry. You know ministers are all equal. No minister can give an instruction to another. It’s only President Mugabe who has the powers to give the ministers instructions. Once that department is moved to the President’s Office, everything will change immediately, in that one minute.
DS: Some of the issues you raise as you rightfully state are there in the legislation. For instance incorporating the requirement in by-laws that every public building should be accessible to people living with disabilities. Does that require any budget?
JM: That’s the difficult part. Every able-bodied person has a negative attitude towards people living with disabilities. They don’t think of them. That’s what I was saying. No school that I know or very few schools in rural areas or even in town were built with people living with disabilities in mind. Except that like in Bulawayo, it started when I became mayor, I erected toilets for people living with disabilities, to make things accessible. Look at Northlea High School, look at all those (former) ‘A’ schools can someone living with disabilities on a wheelchair go there? All classrooms are upstairs and there is no lift. That is what I am saying. The designers of Zimbabwe’s community services and facilities design everything without us in mind. As far as they are concerned we are not part of the community, sporting, recreational, educational system and labour system. We are the last to be hired and first to be fired. When they want to cut a budget they start with us and they end with us when they are recruiting.
DS: But why is this so?
JM: It’s the attitude.
DS: But do people not appreciate that we are all potentially disabled? I can leave here now be involved in an accident and end up disabled for instance.
JM: I am not just making a statement. I am talking reality. The real world is not like that. The real world has nothing for people living with disabilities. Look at what we got after the Constitution making exercise. Despite the decisions which the Constitutional Committee — of which I was a member and a leader in Matabeleland South — made, none of the recommendations on disability is there in the Constitution.
DS: Which are the key ones, the burning ones that you say there we were robbed?
JM: That there should be a quota system for the disabled and that the disability department should be transferred to the President’s Office. There are recommendations in every aspect of life. None of those was taken.
Listen, even the constitution does not commit itself in providing services to people living with disabilities. When they are talking about the ex-combatants, it’s clear, the ex-combatants will have the following privileges and rights, the women will have the following privileges and rights, the youth the following privileges and rights, the children will have the following privileges and rights but with the disabled it says they will have the following privileges and rights provided there are funds. It’s a case of giving us with the right hand and taking with the left hand.
DS: Thank you Cde Malinga for your time.
