Under the new legislation, the Persons with disabilities Act law, the Malawi Council for Disability Affairs (MACODA) formerly the Malawi Council for the handicapped (MACOHA) is supposed to operate as a commercial entity.
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The Bangwe factory is one such venture for the organization to generate adequate resources in providing more support towards disability programmes in the country.
MACODA’s Director General George Chiusiwa in an interview indicated that under the new legislation, the Disability Trust Fund is a funding mechanism which has been established to finance disability programmes in Malawi.
Some its objectives is to look at providing grants to persons with disabilities to enable them access assistive devices and other investments to be carried out by MACODA to generate more resources.
Other areas relate to subsidies to be provided to organisations dealing with persons with disabilities to enhance their implementation of various disability programmes and services.
Among the investments one of the suggested proposals is for MACODA to have a filling station along Chilambula road in Lilongwe which it will be operating as a business venture.
“Ordinarily persons with disabilities are supposed to be involved from the word go; we’re talking about planning of the issues, planning of the projects and the investments. It has to be stated again that the law provides that people who are supposed to be appointed in the board of MACODA of the six people appointed, 50 percent should be persons with disabilities.
“That should mean that governance wise MACODA’s operations are determined by persons with disabilities meaning that persons with disabilities are at the centre stage. It is also very important to state that MACODA works hand in hand with organisations of persons with disabilities under the umbrella body of the Federation of disability organisations in Malawi (FEDOMA) and other organisations that are outside the affiliation of FEDOMA”
Being a public fund, the Disability Trust Fund is also open to all organisations of persons with disabilities, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) implementing disability programmes in Malawi.
Through the Act, government focused on addressing the deficiencies previously encountered in addressing the human rights breaches and violations against persons with disabilities.
Chiusiwa acknowledged the huge task in terms of the technical, material, financial and system needs the Council is supposed to have in order to adequately enforce the Persons with disabilities Act.
“We have been in discussions with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, Ministry of Gender and ofcouse the Department of Human resource management and development and the Department of Statutory corporations to see to it as how do we strategically plan to effectively operationise the law. We are happy to say that we have support from government regarding the effective implementation of this new law”
