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"id": 215647,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/215647/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Machage",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Health",
"speaker": {
"id": 179,
"legal_name": "Wilfred Gisuka Machage",
"slug": "wilfred-machage"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. Ten per cent of Kenya's population is made up of disabled people. That, therefore, gives you the statistics that one out of every ten Kenyans is likely to be disabled. With those statistics, therefore, the chances that you, in this House, was to be disabled is one out of ten. That is a high chance, indeed. Nobody chooses to be born disabled. At the same time, nobody chooses to give birth to a disabled child. There is a chance that is equally distributed in all the population of this country. Therefore, there is the necessity to support disabled people, as it was put by the Professor, with all the vigour it deserves. The blind, deaf and mentally sick and so on are a people of this country. As we deliberate and try to change the Constitution to put a special salary to the over 65 per cent of the 65-age old people of this country, I think it will be prudent to consider also putting the disabled that are not employed and are above 18 years of age on the same category to be put on a special salary. Therefore, this requires that the Government, in its budgeting in future to consider putting a special percentage for the purposes of benefits for the disabled people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is, indeed, ironical that we do not include the disabled in any of our planning. Look at our road infrastructure; the only thing that can be done is, maybe, to consider lanes for bicycles which are usually driven by able people. There are no special parking places for disabled people; there are no special engineering companies or even firms in this country that produce vehicles that can be driven by the disabled. It is a detriment to be born disabled. Even in hospitals, most of them do not have special wards for the disabled. This is where sympathy is actually to be considered maximally, and you will find the disabled being thrown in the same space in which the able people are put in hospitals. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the hon. Member that has just finished contributing has talked about jails. Let us look at all the educational facilities in this country; even universities, not only primary and secondary schools as thought by the professor who proposed this Motion! I, therefore, say that 10 per cent of every facilitation should be given to the disabled; 10 per cent of everything, because that is the population that these people command in this country; 10 per cent of the space in the university, hospitals and even in jails should be left and prepared for the disabled people. Indeed, in some districts, we have not had even one facility, leave alone the few districts that were well endowed with this kind of facilitation by missionaries and other philanthropists. But we think it is prudent now to consider having these facilities in every district, especially in cognisance of the fact that the population has increased. At Independence, we had a population of 7 million. Now, we have a population of nearly 34 million, an increase which is nearly five-fold of the population with no increase in the facilities that serve the disabled. It is wrong! It is, indeed, wrong! There has to be more than five-fold increase in the facilities that were put hitherto, for the purposes of serving the disabled. Indeed, I think having at least 90 facilities that are being run by the Government, by the taxpayers' money, budgeted for by this House, will be the best thing we can do for the disabled. This will enable us to facilitate, not only schools, as this Motion proposes, but also other facilities. But I think we should start somewhere. Let us start with a primary and secondary school that is specially modelled for the purposes of helping those people in every July 4, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2243 district. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Vice-President for personally taking charge of running some firms that produce wheel-chairs and other facilities. Being disabled is not only being crippled. There are other disabilities like the blind, the deaf, and so on. But some of the most endowed people in terms of intelligence are the disabled. They have all the qualities of leadership. One of the Presidents of the United States of America was disabled. Even when the NARC Government was coming into power, our own president was temporarily disabled at that time and was able to win the elections in a wheel-chair. Those are small examples that can be shown on how important these people are and what position they can hold in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, these are gifted people. Just losing the sense of sight enhances your other senses. These people are able to monitor and manipulate the environment using the other senses even better than you do. They can use this to be in the fore-front in nation- building. We should not discard 10 per cent of our population just because we are ignorant. That ignorance has to be discarded and we have to facilitate it for the disabled. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}