SEVENTY-five per cent of handicapped adults are unemployed but willing to work, the chairman of the Organisation for the Support of Disabled People, Christos Michaelides, said yesterday.
Michaelides was addressing the House Labour Committee, which convened yesterday to discuss the social and financial problems faced by the handicapped.
The Organisation’s chairman and several deputies accused the government of not doing enough to help the disabled lead a normal life.
“Seventy-five per cent of them are unemployed because of social discrimination and also because the state does not give them incentives to work,” Michaelides charged.
Disabled people who do not have a job are entitled to state benefit of £250 a month, he added.
“When a handicapped person has a small position earning say £200 per month he is only entitled to half the state allowance. What kind of incentive is that for him to work?” Michaelides asked.
Michaelides said the Labour Ministry had promised to address the needs of handicapped people, “but then they directed us to the Finance Ministry which we ended up being allergic to.”
AKEL deputy Sotiroulla Charalambous said the government had drafted a bill calling for measures to support the handicapped but had not yet submitted it to Parliament.
“The Labour Ministry has told us that they can’t implement such a law yet because they don’t have adequate personnel to realise the scheme,” she said.
The bill aims to give more job opportunities to the disabled. Among others, it gives employers in the public as well as the private sector incentives to hire handicapped people.
“The way things stand, there are no special provisions regarding an employer’s right to fire a disabled person,” Charalambous noted.
The deputy also charged that the government did not urge businesses to make the necessary adjustments so they could employ disabled people.
“They offer a company just £500 to construct a ramp and they call that help.”
Zacharias Zachariou of DISY argued, ” these people feel like beggars, always expecting money from radio marathons and other collections.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way as many of them want and can work, we only need to get rid of our taboos to let it happen,” he added.
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