House Chairperson, to the Deputy Minister, according to a Statistics SA survey into persons with disabilities, previously disadvantaged are not able to access much needed assistive devices like wheelchairs, hearing aids etc. This problem extends to children as 500 000 disabled learners do not have access to any schooling or training.
In the area of entrepreneurship, people with disabilities experience lack of equipment and machinery, business networking, they face discrimination and lack access to start up funding etc. Why does your department not have a database that systematically tracks the number people living with disabilities as well as their skills so that they can access employment when that employment becomes available and also the much needed devices that are needed by them? It seems the logical first step in assisting this incredibly vulnerable group. When will your department start a process such as this? Thank you.
The DEPUTY MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR WOMEN, YOUTH AND PERSONS
WITH DISABILITIES: Hon members, I think we are four months into office. We are in a process of transferring the division of persons with disabilities from Social Development to the Department of Women, Youth and Person with Disabilities. I assume the Department of Social Development will handover to us data of some kind - I do not know what its status is. The Department of Employment and Labour also has data of some kind which they are supposed to bring to us as well.
The task team is working their budgetary implications. There are warm bodies - staff members - who have to be transferred over and
that work should be finalised as soon as possible because according to the planning teams we are not supposed to go beyond October in terms of transferring entities and work.
We will certainly look at what they hand over and prioritise information that is credible about the circumstances of persons with disabilities. But from what I know from other spheres of government like Education, they also have their own data. There are pockets of data all over the systems, but now that as a department we have been allocated this responsibility the honours is upon us to collate information and assist even those people who are willing to employ persons with disabilities but don't know where find them.
I will admit that at the moment we are in a transitional phase but the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities binds all of us to do exactly what you are saying - to give that kind of support and empowerment to persons with disabilities so that they can live a dignified and independent life. Thank you, House Chairperson.