Persons with disability (PWDs) in Kilifi County have decried lack of representation at the County Assembly of Kilifi.
Speaking to journalists in Malindi town, representatives of the PWDs allied to the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party said issues affecting persons with disabilities were not properly being articulated in the county since the PWDs lack a voice at the local legislative assembly.
The Coordinator of the ODM Disability League in the County, Ms. Victorine Nyamolo, said the lack of representation contravened provisions of the constitution, which gives women, the youth, persons with disabilities and minority groups special consideration in nomination slots at the county assemblies.
She complained that despite fronting the name of Ms. Leila Tinga for nomination as a representative of those living with disabilities, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) ignored her name.
Appeals to the ODM leadership at the county and national level had fallen on deaf ears, while a case the PWDs filed against the decision to deny them representation had been dismissed on technical grounds, she said.
“We feel as members of the ODM Disability League that we have been left behind in many things because of the lack of representation at the County Assembly,” Ms Nyamwalo, who represented PWDs in the second Kilifi County Assembly, said.
She said that efforts to get assistance from the Speaker of the Kilifi County Assembly, Mr. Teddy Mwambire, who is also the ODM chairman in the county, had been futile.
“When we seek help from the Speaker, he says that the issue should be handled by the chairman, yet he is the one occupying the two positions. We are left confused as we do not know who to go to,” she said.
John Benjamin Mbuzi, the interim chairman of the Malindi Sub County Organization of Persons with Disabilities said persons with disabilities in the sub county had formed a savings and credit cooperative (SACCO) society but their issues cannot be articulated well since they had nobody to push them at the legislature.
“We feel that we have been left as orphans since we are not represented at the assembly,” he said adding that they were not receiving county government tenders as required by law as they used to when one of their own was representing them.
Their sentiments were echoed by Pastor Dominic Kamau and Mr. Haroun Changawa, who added that should the party fail to address the matter, they would be forced to go back to the courts for redress.
Contacted for comment, Speaker Teddy Mwambire dismissed claims that he had failed to assist the PWDs, saying the party played its role in forwarding the proposed names and that the IEBC was the one mandated to gazette nominated MCAs.
By Emmanuel Masha and Daniel Mae
