Lack of financial services hit disabled persons hard

Dar es Salaam. People with disabilities are largely excluded from financial services, a cabinet minister said yesterday, noting that the situation forces them to opt for street begging.

Delivering his speech to grace the forum for micro-finance stakeholders in Dar es Salaam yesterday, the Deputy Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for persons with disabilities, Dr Abdallah Possi, said the number of disabled Tanzanians currently stands at about two million.

“You have to discuss ways of lifting these marginalized persons from financial exclusion.

When these people are shifted from financial exclusion and become capacitated financially, they will refrain from begging and the government’s burden to provide social services to them will be reduced,” said Dr Possi.

Lifting a majority of the country’s population out of financial exclusion, he said, the burden of government to set aside huge subsidies for social delivery will be drastically reduced.

“Increased financial inclusion will also increase efficiency and effectiveness in the provision of services to the citizens,” said Dr Possi who is himself one of those persons living with albinism.