People with Disability (PWD) accounts for 10 percent of the Malaysian population. The 2010 Budget speech by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak who is also minister of finance only showed that there will be incentives given for the PWDs. But how about promoting accessibility for this group of people?

Giving incentives alone will not help PWDs to live a normal life. There is an important need to ensure that mobility for PWDs is made easy by creating a barrier-free environment so that they can get access to places easily and without depending on others to help them.

We have to bear in mind that PWDs have no intention of sitting around waiting for their monthly incentives/allowance. Many of them have skills and would like to earn their own living. However, due to a lack of accessibility, it becomes a great hurdle for them to go anywhere or be mobile.

Accessibility is often used to focus on people with disabilities and their right of access to entities, often through the use of assistive technology. Accessible Design/Universal Design is all about making things accessible to all people (whether they have a disabilities or not).

In our opinion, the public transport system in Malaysia doesn’t cater fully for PWDs in its current state. There is not much space allocated for in buildings where persons in wheelchairs can move about freely without being assisted.

As a responsible citizen, we also eed to practice social responsibility as well. Many of us are not sensitive to the needs of PWDs. For example, the parking lots which are allocated for PWDs are often taken up selfishly by normal drivers.

In one of the hypermarkets I visited recently, there was about five security guards inside the hypermarket to ensure there was no shop-lifting but there was no guard placed at the parking area to ensure PWDs’ parking lots were not misused.

Businesses should open up their eyes and ensure that they are socially responsible in minimising barriers for PWDs. The authorities should take these offences seriously and fine those who misuse the privileges provided for PWDs.

How do you expect the PWDs to lead a normal life when we have people who just do not care for them and behave irresponsibly like this? The government should also encourage the developers and contractors to make provisions for barrier-free access to PWDs and this should be made mandatory and enforced.

The writer is attached to the Malaysian Association of Standards Users.