By Poloko Mokhele
There is a glimmer of hope after it emerged that disbursement of long-anticipated disability grants to the Lesotho National Federation of Organisations of the Disabled (LNFD) is in pipeline.
This after the ministry said that it hoped to begin paying out disability grants to 201 disabled persons in the districts of Leribe and Botha-Bothe from next week.
The ministry of social development senior information, education and communication officer; Mpho Makhetha, said this week said there was strong likelihood that the funds would be initially paid out to the disabled in the two northern districts.
She said: “We are expecting payments to start next week but you know when you deal with such matters there might be challenges.”
Makhetha said assessments to track down the beneficiaries in the two districts has been completed adding the first batch of the grant will be availed to the deserving earners in this quarter of the financial year.
However, she could not say how many disability persons will benefit from each of the two districts.
She suggested that a number of doctors is to be trained from next week to detect the gravity of disability condition of a person .and the medical history.
“The biggest challenge we are currently facing is that we still need to train more doctors to assess a large number of persons with disability,” Makhetha remarked.
The assessments, to be carried out by the ministries of social welfare and health respectively will scrutinise both social and health aspects of the disabled.
“It is only after these two assessments that a person will be considered for a grant. For instance, you may find the social assessment indicating the person as not needy but the medical assessment could prove the person as having a critical disability,” she concluded.
Meanwhile, the LNFOD is hopeful an establishment of the Disability Advisory Council will reduce the plight of the disabled persons by speedily advocating for the grnats to be availed to the disabled.
The formation of the council has been on the lips of the disabled persons’ lips for quite some time. They hope the body will be a relief to their adversities which they suggest have long been in place.
The Disability Advisory Council was announced after the enactment of the Persons with Disability Equity Act, 2021 which provides persons with disabilities a variety of legal rights including access to services such as education, health and physical access in all public places.
The functions of the council among others include, to monitor and evaluate issues concerning disability in Lesotho, advise on and adopt measures and standards concerning disability. It will also monitor the situation of the rights of persons with disability and render expertise for the protection of the rights of the disabled to the human rights belated human rights commission.
“We will continue to engage government and push it to establish the Disability Advisory Council as per the Act. The council is the only effective tool that can push government to do the right thing regarding persons with disability because we can see that there is currently no political will in the ministry,” LNFOD director Nkhasi Sefuthi said.
The federation expected the grants to be distributed subsequent to the finalisation of the 20212022 budget allocation.
The promise to distribute disability grants was first made by the then minister of finance, Thabo Sophonea who indicated: “I want to point out that the social grants budget has also grown significantly in order for us to reduce vulnerability. Therefore, we can only maintain the current levels of social grants and expand coverage of vulnerable groups by implementing the disability grant.”
Minister of social development ‘Matebatso Doti in mid-2021 announced that the grant would be allocated based on medical confirmation and assessment on individual’s vulnerability, appealing for cooperation from the public.
But Sefuthi is not convinced: “We are still having meetings with the ministry of social development officials, but there are always delays regarding the date that the grants can be disbursed. Even this month (February) we were informed that it is being launched in Botha-Bothe since they have done an assessment there.”
“What is quite clear is that the government has failed persons with disability because whenever government has plans to implement something and highlights it in the budget speech it has to have funds ready for that before making an announcement. This proves that they were not ready for this,” he believed.
Sefuthi criticized the administration for delays to implement the grant plan saying the commencement of the financial year 2022/2023 was on the door step.
The new financial year is to begin in April.
“The announcement (on disability grant) was made in February last year during the budget speech, this means it has been over a year now and the new financial is expected to start in April,” he said.
He was perturbed by the delay as he thought the grants would assist them in taking care of their livelihoods.
