Maputo — The Mozambican government intends to impose a quota system for employing disabled people on all state bodies.

A draft strategy towards disabled workers in the public administration calls for a minimum of 1.5 per cent of places to be reserved for the disabled in state institutions that employ between 100 and 500 staff, three per cent in those which have between 600 and 900 staff, and five per cent for those that employ 1,000 or more people.

These are minimum figures and the institutions will be free to employ more disabled people. The document admits that there may be some institutions for which the quotas cannot be met, because the nature of the work is such that disabled are unable to perform the tasks. However, the strategy assumes that in all state bodies there is a potential to employ disabled people.

Speaking at the opening of a seminar in Maputo on Wednesday on the strategy, the Minister for Women's Affairs and Social Welfare, Virgilia Matabele, condemned the attitudes of some civil servants "who consider disability an impediment to access to employment".

This compounded the difficulties which the disabled already experienced in attempting to compete on a footing of equality with the able-bodied for training opportunities and for jobs.

One serious problem is that many state buildings have no wheelchair access. The draft strategy thus calls for the elimination of all such physical barriers to the employment of disabled people. All public buildings should this be accessible to people in wheelchairs, and those which are not should gradually undergo modification to make them accessible - or, in extreme cases, may have to be abandoned altogether.

The strategy urges state institutions to take a flexible approach to their disabled staff. This may involve allowing them to work part time, or from home, and permitting them to take regular short breaks for medication.

Advertisements for staff recruitment, the draft says, should include a paragraph aimed specifically at the disabled, and admission tests should be designed that allow visually impaired candidates to use Braille, and people with hearing problems to use sign language.

The Forum of Mozambican Associations of the Disabled (FAMOD) regards the draft strategy as a significant step forwards. "It's always been a dream of the Forum to have a specific regulation on disabled people in the public administration, as happens in many other countries", FAMOD spokesperson Abel Machavate told AIM.

He though the new strategy, if approved, "will reduce the number of cases of discrimination against disabled people in the workplace".

But Machavate warned that discrimination did not only happen in the public administration but was rife throughout the private sector. He said that, in general, the disabled are simply excluded from employment, even when they have the qualifications necessary for the activities concerned.

"The situation is general", he said. "Discrimination is not declared openly, but the discriminatory attitudes on the part of some civil servants are even worse than overt discrimination".

Mm/pf (505)