Plateau Disability Commission seeks Trust Fund for PWDs

The Plateau Disability Rights Commission has called for the establishment of a Disability Trust Fund to enable it improve the wellbeing of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in the state.

The Secretary of the commission, Mr Carl Gurumyen, who made the call on Tuesday, in Jos, added that the fund would enhance sustainable funding of the commission’s activities and programmes.

He also said that the proposed fund would access a percentage of the state’s total tax revenue to assist it in addressing the challenges of PWDs.

“This will enable us have continuous funding for scholarships, sponsorships of PWDs and to handle other issues affecting them.

“The trust fund is supposed to be drawn from a percentage of the tax revenue of the state, where one per cent will be given to the commission monthly,” he said.

Gurumyen said the commission had conducted advocacy visits to some organisations, such as the police headquarters, the Ministry of Justice and the state high courts, for the establishment of desk officers to handle PWDs issues.

According to him, the commission was working towards having desk officers for PWDs in hospitals, especially for the hearing impaired. to enable them to communicate their health needs with ease.

In 2019, he said, 500 wheelchairs were distributed to the physically challenged persons selected from across the state’s 17 Local Government Areas.

He said the commission was also partnering with NGOs to advocate for the wellbeing of PWDs, their involvement in governance, and the sensitisation of the public to uphold their human rights.

The secretary stressed that the full implementation of the state’ disability law would assist in addressing the issues of PWDs.

“We are identifying places where PWDs have hardship in accessing to conduct advocacy visits so that provisions are made for them to access public places such as banks, schools and markets.

“We have taken sensitisation campaigns to Lawmakers as funded by the Australian Embassy, and to traditional rulers living in rural areas where the PWDs mostly reside.

“We have in our two previous budgets included requests for access to public places, banks, schools, worship centres, parking lots designated for PWDs,” he said.

He urged the PWDs to trust the commission to address their challenges as well as visit it to ventilate their complaints instead of using the social media.