There were 103 cases of alleged abuse of the Blue Badge and disabled parking spaces reported to the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) over the course of 2017, new statistics published by the same Commission showed on Tuesday.

In a press briefing by the CRPD’s compliance unit manager, Bernard Busuttil, it was noted that out of these reports, 70 were verified and passed on to the police or to Transport Malta, whilst 13 were found to be repeat offenders.  There were 39 reports of alleged abuse of the blue badge, 47 reports of abuse of disabled-specific parking spaces, and 17 reports of people who hold a blue badge but allegedly do not have a disability.

Busuttil said that the CRPD has no power in dealing with the misuse of the blue badges; but it does its utmost to verify each report and pass it on to the relevant authorities with whom, Busuttil said, the CRPD have very relations.

In total there were 203 new complaints submitted to the CRPD between October 2016 and October 2017, joining a further 319 complaints which are still pending.  By far the biggest source of complaints was in terms of accessibility, Busuttil said, with 86 of the new complaints and 208 of the pending complaints being focused on this regard.  There were a further 42 new complaints in the education sector, 34 in services, 19 in the workplace, nine in housing, seven on rights and five on assurances.

The bulk of the complaints over the past 17 years have been against the government, with 836 registered complaints over the years and 89 new ones registered in the aforementioned period.  Busuttil noted however that the CRPD appreciates that this is a natural occurrence because the government is by far the biggest provider in terms of services.  Following the government in terms of the number of complaints since the year 2000 was the private sector (617), local councils (317), para-statal elements (171), ecclesiastical entities (154) and unions (just the one solitary complaint falls under this bracket).

The commissioner within the CRPD Oliver Scicluna meanwhile expanded on the assurances sector, saying that this was one of the matters of grave concern for him and for many disabled people.  He cited one example as being with regards to life policies, which are needed for the purchase of a house.  Despite this though, Scicluna said, many disabled people either had the door closed in front of them when trying to attain a life policy, or they would have to pay three or sometimes even four times as much for it.

Scicluna said that accessibility remains a prominent problem as well, saying that for example out of 300 shops surveyed along Merchant’s Street in Valletta, only 33 were found to be fully accessibile.  He also noted that there was a new trend in the nature of complaints related to employment, saying that the complaints were based much less on acquiring employment, and more on having unsatisfactory conditions on the workplace. 

Parliamentary Secretary for persons with disability Anthony Agius Decelis expressed his satisfaction at the published report, saying that he could not imagine his secretariat without the CRPD.  He added that work needs to continue to keep giving the CRPD all the proper resources for their work, and said that the role of the commission in providing protection to individuals was integral.  The issues presented by the commission as a whole, Agius Decelis said, are useful in giving the secretariat a guideline so to recognise which sectors require improvement.