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Despite law, disabled ignored in building plans

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Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria says the national government has not played its role as the duty bearer in setting the example to compliance. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Fifteen years have passed since the Persons with Disabilities Act, which among other things, demands that there be a national policy that will push the real estate sector to come up with designs that ease accessibility by the group.

The Persons with Disabilities Act 14 (2003) demands that all proprietors of a public building adapt it to suit persons with disabilities and criminalises any withholding of right to admission into premises that which members of the public are ordinarily admitted; unless such denial is honestly motivated by a genuine concern for the safety of such a person.

The national council for the disabled was given authority under the Act to be issuing compliance notices to any developer (both public and private), and if that developer fails to heed, it shall be deemed that a discrimination against the disabled has been executed.

"A person who is convicted of those discriminating tendencies is liable to a fine not exceeding Sh20,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both such fine and imprisonment.

In addition, a person found guilty of such offences may suffer further penalties imposed by the court, such penalties including being ordered to pay the person injured by the offence such sums of money in compensation as the court may deem appropriate," the Act reads.

Yet, nothing concrete has been done to ensure compliance with these demands. Interestingly, even the National Council for Persons with Disabilities appears to be disinterested in pursuing compliance.
As a result, the national housing sector has largely continued to discriminate against the disabled, the major culprit being the government itself.

This is made more saddening by a declaration by the CEO for the Kenya Paraplegic Organisation, Ms Elsie Mulindi, that poorly designed roads and cases of collapsing buildings were among the major causes of injuries that lead to a growing number of the disabled in the society.

Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria says the national government has not played its role as the duty bearer in setting the example to compliance.

“There is no national policy that has been issued so that it can be enforced as a matter of a must. We know there is that Act, but we have no instruments for its implementation. The National Construction Authority does not factor disability compliance as a prerequisite for buildings’ approval,” he said.

READ: Jetty contractors accused of ignoring needs of disabled

The governor, speaking in Murang’a Town last week, said the matter has been left to individual county governments to devise ways of applying the Act by exercising their powers as custodians of the building code to force the housing sector to comply.

Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu, who is the Council of Governors chairman on Land, Planning and Urban Development says the issue cropped up in their January National Urban Forum that was held in Nairobi.

“It was noted that 99 per cent of our housing sector discriminates against the disabled. But how to mitigate the damage was left to the national government to issue a policy guideline on how to circumvent the issue through the National Construction Authority,” he says.

He says in the absence of that commitment, counties that have been empowered by devolved functions to be the final authority in approving building plans, must include the disabled in the urbanisation agenda.