Nairobi — The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) will employ more people with disabilities to meet the threshold quota of five percent.

To achieve this, it will encourage people living with disabilities to apply for vacant positions, besides working with the National Council for Persons with Disabilities to notify them of any vacant positions.

Out of the total KPA employees of 6,522, 97 are people living with disabilities, representing only 1.5 percent of the total.

Abled people account for 98.5 percent of its total workforce.

"It is also imperative to point out that the recruitment trends of the PWD composition of the Authority staff to meet the 5% quota are being implemented progressively," KPA Managing Director William Ruto said in a letter to the Senate Clerk.

KPA is also giving women priority during job recruitments to fill the gender gap at the government agency.

This is slowly paying off; as of September 2023, women's representation at KPA had grown to 22 percent, up from 18.66 percent in October 2006, which was before the 30 percent directive on gender was introduced.

"During the last three recruitments undertaken by the Authority, there was a deliberate effort by Management to ensure that the numbers of female staff are deliberately increased, notwithstanding that majority of the applicants were male," Ruto said.

"Consequently, out of the staff recruited, more than 30 percent were female."