Registration of persons with disabilities will now be done at county headquarters.
Government Spokesperson Isaac Mwaura announced this change, highlighting the previous inconvenience of a centralized system.
He explained, “This decentralization saves unregistered PWDs the agony of traveling to Nairobi for verification and signing of their disability reports.”
“The government has on the other hand decentralized registration of persons with disabilities to be done by directors of health at the county level,” said Government Spokesperson Isaac Mwaura.
Mwaura was Speaking on Thursday while outlining achievements for the Ministries of Labour, Health and Water, Irrigation, and Sanitation during the Kenya Kwanza regime’s 16 months in office.
He attributed the low numbers of PWDs registered by NCPWD to the centralized system, which he says made many PWDs forego the registration in effect denying them benefits that come with recognition of their condition.
“The low number of the PWDs captured by the National Council for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) at about 580,000 in the country, whereas the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) figure stands at slightly above 6 million PWDs, is attributable to eligible PWDs shying away from registering over the long process but the uptake is now expected to go up following the decentralization,” he said.