Budget fails people with disabilities

M50 grant increase deemed insufficient

RETHABILE MOHONO

MASERU – The national budget still fails to address the needs of persons with disabilities, as the M50 increase remains insufficient.

This was stated by Advocate Nkhasi Sefuthi, the Executive Director at the Lesotho National Federation of Organizations of the Disabled (LNFOD). He complained that the disability grant of M650 is still inadequate considering the needs of people with disabilities.

He further lamented that even this small disability grant is not accessible to all people with disabilities, who are estimated to be around 46 000 in the country, while only less than 3 000 receive the grant. “This might be an increase, but a lot still needs to be done to address the issue of the disability grant, as it is too little to cover the needs of people with disabilities,” he said.

Looking at the previous year, persons with disabilities were not included in the budget. However, this year their grant was merely increased by M50, raising it from M600 to M650. During last year’s budget announcement, Rabasotho Moeletsi, the project coordinator at LNFOD, expressed his disappointment with the 2024/2025 budget.

LNFOD, established in 1989, serves as an umbrella organization for various disability-related groups in Lesotho. In a previous interview with Public Eye, Moeletsi shared that they had been hopeful for improvements in the 2024/2025 budget speech but were left disappointed.

He said that in last year’s budget, the government attempted to address some of the challenges and needs of people living with disabilities, which gave them hope that this year’s budget would bring further improvements. “To our disappointment, nothing much was said about people with disabilities,” he said. In the 2023 budget, M1.1 billion was allocated to vulnerable citizens. Additionally, the government increased the child grant from M120 to M200 per month, while the disability grant increased from M400 to M600 per month.

However, last year’s budget only mentioned that the government would continue providing social safety nets to vulnerable groups.

“This will also be complemented by sustainable livelihood programmes aimed at reducing dependency on public assistance. The government will take measures to enhance functionality and internal controls for the Old Age Pension and other public assistance systems, as well as move towards cashless payments for grants,” the budget highlighted.

Nonetheless, Moeletsi complained that the government had promised to make changes for people living with disabilities in the previous budget, but now progress seems to have stalled once again.

“People with disabilities face numerous challenges in meeting their daily needs, which is extremely difficult for them. Excluding them from the budget will make their lives even harder, especially considering rising inflation rates and healthcare expenses,” he said.

Persons with disabilities in the country consistently face various forms of discrimination.

They encounter obstacles in accessing education, employment opportunities, justice, and healthcare services. Regrettably, their constitutional rights are frequently violated solely because of their disabilities.

According to the Lesotho Demographic Survey (2001), 4.2 percent of the population has some form of disability, and about one-third of these individuals are children under 15 years old.

However, due to unreliable data, these statistics do not accurately reflect the magnitude and prevalence of disability in Lesotho.

Nevertheless, significant efforts have been made to address this

issue in Lesotho:

Disability Equity Bill: Lesotho is on the verge of celebrating a landmark achievement. Before the end of this year, parliament is scheduled to pass the Disability Equity Bill, a law that promotes and protects the rights of Basotho with disabilities. These individuals constitute an estimated 2.5 percent of the population.

The new law will represent a significant step forward for Lesotho’s social inclusion agenda. It mandates the domestication of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the implementation of the rights protected by the Convention.

In 2008, Lesotho ratified the CRPD, becoming the 42nd country to do so. In 2017, the country’s Constitutional Court took concrete action by repealing Section 219 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act of 1981.

This repeal granted people with intellectual disabilities the right to testify in court. The Disability Equity Bill builds upon this progress, ensuring that the rights of persons with disabilities are upheld.

However, this year, the old-age grant was not increased, and little attention was given to elderly individuals in the budget.