The National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda (NUDIPU) and the National Council of Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) met with the National Identification Regulatory Authority (NIRA) team led by Executive Director Rosemary Kisembo.
The main subject of the discussion was the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the enrollment process ensuring that there is an employment quota for qualified persons with Disabilities, ensuring that there is capacity strengthening of the team going to conduct the mass enrollment, and Persons with physical disabilities without hands can be registered and they also get the national IDs as well as mass mobilization of persons with disabilities across the country.
This follows a Memorandum of Understanding signed between NIRA, NUDIPU, and NCPD to enhance the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the upcoming mass enrollment.
From the MOU 12.4% of eligible persons with disabilities were to be enrolled to be given jobs in the mass enrollment process.
According to the Executive Director NIRA, Ms Kisembo Rosemary, they were able to adhere to this, and out of the 155 persons with disabilities who applied only 42 qualified and were taken on board. 15 of these are going to work as Data processors, 4 as registration officers, and 23 to serve as assistant registrars.
Kisembo noted that this time NIRA is going to be more considerate and accommodative to the point that for those persons with disabilities whose thumbprints cannot be captured to get identity cards, there is an option to take their photos and also capture the Iris of their eyes.
“We all agree if someone has missing features on their bodies, for the start they have faces and therefore their photos will be taken,” Kisembo said.
However, the onus to mobilize persons with disabilities is now on OPDs, NCPD, and NUDIPU and this calls for joint quick action to mobilize as many persons with disabilities to get national identity cards so that they are not left out in the mass registration for identity cards.
NIRA wants the list of these Persons with Disabilities in every Parish by the 19th of September, 2024 therefore calling for urgent need to act accordingly.
Comments are closed.