KUALA LUMPUR: The drafted 2015-2022 action plan for the disabled will be presented to the Cabinet soon, Parliament was told.
Women, Family and Community Development deputy minister Datuk Azizah Mohd Dun said the plan, which was being finalised, would among others, improve employment of the disabled community in public and private sectors.
"This is on top of our other efforts including the job coach programme launched in 2010, the one per cent employment policy imposed on employers since 1988 and financial assistance for those who wish to start their own business.
"Despite these efforts, we admit that we have not achieved the one per cent policy for public and private sectors to hire the disabled, with only eight government agencies that have fulfilled it so far. Thus, we hope that the action plan will help improve this," she said in responding to a supplementary question by Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin (PKR-Bukit Katil).
Shamsul Iskandar earlier asked the number of employment of the disabled in public and private sectors.
"Record by the Public Service Department revealed that as of December last year, it was found that only 0.22 per cent of disabled persons were serving the various government agencies out of the total number of staff in various levels including top management, professionals, and support staff including at the state governments."
The employed disabled staff were registered in different categories, namely vision impairment (733), hearing (298), speech problem (73), physical disabilities (1,998), learning (26), mental (557) while the disability for 25 persons were not specified.