By SANFROSSA MANYINDA
PRESIDENT Lungu must overhaul the National Trust Fund for Persons with Disabilities (NTFPD) because it is denting the image of his administration, Zambia Deaf Youths, Women and Children (ZDYWC) has said.
ZDYWC Executive Director Frankson Musukwa said the attitude of officers in public institutions like NTFPD was negative, hence failing to meet their mandate.
Last week, ZDYWC petitioned President Lungu to dissolve the National Trust Fund for Persons with Disabilities on allegations that it had failed to empower persons with disabilities with microfinance and skills.
The micro finance and skills were important to economic sustainability and independent living. ZDYWC also alleged that the Trust Fund had become a burden and was wasting public resources that were not reaching the intended beneficiaries.
A request was therefore made to the Head of State to engage the office of the Auditor General to investigate how the funds were being used to advance the objectives stipulated in the Persons with Disabilities Act No. 6 of 2012 part 7 section 55.
“Do we need to petition the President for them to wake up and fulfil their constitutional mandate?
“Imagine that it was only after petitioning the President that the organization decided to get in touch with us and tell us that we would be given the loans that we applied for in a few days’ time. What was so difficult for them to do that before then,” Dr Musukwa said.
He said that the Trust Fund requested for a meeting with his organization a day after the petition was published in the Daily Nation Newspaper, but that he refused to meet them as he only wanted intervention of the President at the time.
Dr Musukwa complained that issues should not be done the way they were being handled but that people should learn to handle issues within stipulated rules.
The NTFPD was established under the repealed persons with disabilities act No. 6 of 2021 part VII (55).
