Labour Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua has expressed concern that less than 50 per cent of public institutions have submitted data on the employment of persons living with disabilities.

Mutua said he has written to all ministries and government departments to ensure that at least five per cent of public sector employment opportunities are reserved for persons with disabilities, as required by the Persons with Disabilities Act No.14 of 2003 and Article 54(2) of the Constitution of Kenya.

The Cabinet Secretary told the Senate that, to promote transparency and accountability, the names of institutions that failed to submit the required data were listed in the Status Report on Disability Inclusion, 2024, thereby creating reputational accountability and encouraging future compliance.

“The Ministry of Labour has initiated engagements with relevant authorities to explore possible enforcement measures for non-compliance. This is something that is ongoing — trying to lobby and ensure that others are informed of its importance and how to implement it,” said Mutua.

He noted that the law does not explicitly assign enforcement authority to a single entity, creating a gap in accountability.

This has led to a multi-pronged approach to address the issue and ensure the Public Service Commission assumes a stronger enforcement role, given its constitutional oversight of public sector recruitment.

Mutua said that a structured partnership between the State Department for Social Protection and Senior Citizen Affairs — through the National Council for  Persons with Disabilities — and the Public Service Commission is currently being explored to conduct joint disability inclusion audits in public institutions.

The Cabinet Secretary added that they are monitoring the progressive realisation of the five per cent employment threshold by integrating disability inclusion indicators into the performance appraisals of accounting officers and human resource managers in the public sector.

“There is ongoing work to integrate disability-disaggregated employment data within the Unified Human Resource Information System (UHRIS), and to establish linkage with the NCPWD database for real-time compliance monitoring and cross-verification,” said Mutua.

He said these steps are part of a broader strategy to transition disability inclusion from a goodwill-based effort to a rights-based, structured, and enforceable obligation.

Achieving full compliance with the constitutional five per cent employment requirement will require continued commitment and coordinated action across all arms of government.

Mutua said the Ministry has made efforts to ensure that the disability mainstreaming indicator is reinstated, while acknowledging that it was among six performance indicators retired from the Performance Contracting (PC) guidelines following a comprehensive review of the PC framework.

“The decision was informed by recommendations of the stakeholders’ forum, which resolved to reduce the number of cross-cutting indicators and retain only those directly linked to institutional strengthening and core mandate delivery,” said Mutua.

He added that despite its removal from the performance contracting framework, the State Department for Social Protection and Senior Citizen Affairs — through the National Council for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD), the specialised agency mandated by law to spearhead disability inclusion efforts in public institutions — has continued to implement the indicator.

Mutua said the rationale provided for its retirement includes its anchorage in law, including constitutional provisions like Article 54, the Persons with Disabilities Act No.14 of 2003, and other legal frameworks such as the Access to Information Act.

“The belief that disability inclusion is now mainstreamed in many institutions and can continue to be implemented without necessarily being tied to performance contracting, and the existence of other indicators such as National Values and Principles of Governance, under which aspects of disability inclusion are reported,” said Mutua.