The disabled seek 20 seats in House

The disabled have asked the Committee of Experts and the House to give them at least 20 seats in the next Parliament.

This the number would comprise 15 seats in the National Assembly through mixed representation and five seats in the Senate.

The group also wants at least one representative in all constitutional commissions.

Representatives of the disabled told a news conference in Nairobi that the review of the draft in Naivasha by MPs had watered down their rights as proposed in the CoE’s harmonised draft.

Inasmuch as the Parliamentary Select Committee on the constitution review had reached a political consensus, the disabled too had to be represented, the chairman of the National Council for Persons with Disabilities, Mr Kibaya Laibuta, said.

“If the PSC found it necessary to make a numerical specification on the number of MPs, the number of MPs with disabilities should similarly be entrenched in the Constitution,” he said.

Mr Phitalis Were Masakhwe, who sits in the Reference Group, accused the PSC of “tokenism” in its allocation of seats to the disabled.