PUBLIC SECTOR SHOULD ACHIEVE ONE PER CENT OF OKU EMPLOYMENT – HANNAH YEOH

SUBANG JAYA, Aug 30 (Bernama) — The public sector has to achieve at least one per cent of Persons with Disabilities (OKU) employment to be able to show a good example to the private sector, said Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Hannah Yeoh.

She said the public sector should increase its effort to meet quota requirements, whereby as Dec 31, there were 3,856 or 0.31 per cent OKU who filled up posts in the civil service out of the total 1,268,701 posts.

“I encourage the public sector especially to take advantage of employing the OKU,” she said after visiting  OKU workers at Mydin USJ, Subang Jaya here today.

She said the one per cent OKU employment policy was enforced in April 2008 and its implementation through a Service Circular in 2008 and 2010.

Yeoh said the ministry had achieved the target of one per cent of OKU employment with 144 vacancies filled by OKU of the total 8,138 posts, followed by the Ministry of Defence, which is showing a positive growth of 0.98 per cent, while other ministries have not reached the target.

Describing her visit to Mydin USJ today as very meaningful, Yeoh said she was proud that Mydin, in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), had published nine handbooks to help OKU to understand their job.

Meanwhile, Mydin managing director Datuk Dr Ameer Ali Mydin said at present, Mydin had a total of 111 positions filled by OKU or 1.4 per cent of the 8,000 staff across Malaysia.

“We have staff with learning disability (40 people), hearing disability (35 people), physical disability (31 people), visual disability (four persons) and mental disability (one person),” he said.

He said Mydin had initiated the recruitment of OKU to fill vacancies since 2012 with the recruitment of 76 OKU and reached the highest in 2017 with 164 disabled.

As of June 30 this year, a total of 549,554 OKU are registered with the Social Welfare Department nationwide.– BERNAMA