I do not think that there is a country in the world, such as Kuwait, that gives the disabled all these material and financial benefits, while at the same time keen on humiliating them and insulting their families.

I am writing this with nearly thirty years of experience with the Authority for the Disabled. Our son Tariq has a “severe and permanent disability, but I avoided criticizing the Authority so as not to be accused of seeking personal benefit, but it seems that the problems or ruin of the Authority are constantly increasing.

The reason for the deteriorating situation in the Authority is not only due to its dilapidated administrations, but also to the lack of moral motives in society as well, which is represented in the large number of claiming disabilities due to the generosity in the benefits that the disabled receive, some of which the government approved and exaggerated by pressure from the MPs.

This increased the number of disability claimants and pushed others to cause permanent injuries to themselves or their children, without exaggeration, or to insist on giving birth to disabled children in order to obtain the huge monthly financial disability allowance, some of whom are known of double nationality based on their car plate numbers who only go to the authority to renew their children’s cards or to collect the money.

The committees of the Disability Authority, whose members are often experienced and medical specialists, or so it is assumed, determine the claimant’s disability or reject the claim. They also determine the degree of disability as well as the financial and in-kind reward to which the claimant is entitled. Over the years, there has been a huge manipulation in the reports of some of these committees.

Although the Authority announces almost annually, the referral of some disability claimants, or their relatives to the prosecution in order to recover the large sums of money they have obtained through fraud and forgery, I personally have never heard of referring any member of the committee to the Prosecution, because he is the person responsible for this forgery in the official records. The disabled person obtains compensation through specialized committees.

It is also very strange, and this is what I personally felt, the insistence of the Authority’s management that the disabled person visit the department almost every year, despite the fact that his/her condition is classified on the basis of severe and permanent disability. Do they think that permanent means temporary, or that their confidence in the validity of their certificates is temporary?

Doctors who are members of the disability committees know, or so they are assumed, that real science has not yet found a cure for MS (multiple sclerosis) or mental retardation which is described as permanent annually.

Why has the authority, for years, been complaining of a huge shortage of disability stickers for cars of disabled people who have to wait for renewal sometimes for two months or more?

I believe that if I went to the Disability Commission to ask its officials about the reason for all their suspicions about the disabled, they would have drowned me in cases of fraud and strange manipulation that they were exposed to, and the large number of interference by some deputies in their work, and their threats, and the Minister concerned with the commission hearing the complaints of deputies against them, and the administration often having to meet those requests for fear of being referred to the Prosecution, or investigation and removal.

We want an honorable representative who cares about the status of the commission and demands that its status be amended, through the issuance of a decision by the Prime Minister personally, to prevent deputies from entering it and interfering in its affairs.

Until that day comes, we will continue with our backwardness and our belief that gathering a thousand women for prayer is more important, more blessed, and more important than reforming a corrupt institution, or an upside-down situation or the arrest of a corrupt person.

e-mail: [email protected]

By Ahmad alsarraf