Blind court employee claims discrimination
Simbongile Njokwana says the Port Elizabeth High Court has not equipped her with the tools for her job, two years after she was employed.
|||Port Elizabeth – What should have been a dream job for 32-year-old Simbongile Njokwana, who is blind, has turned into a nightmare as the Port Elizabeth High Court where she is employed as a switchboard operator has yet to give her the tools to do her job properly, she says.
This after the advert for the position specifically stated that “only disabled candidates would be considered for the position”.
Njokwana, originally from Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, says she has been battling to have her place of work provide her with the equipment to do her job and says she is being discriminated against precisely because of her disability.
However, a justice department spokesman Nathi Mncube said on Friday the matter was being attended to and the department was in the process of procuring equipment for Njokwana.
“I will visit the high court in the next two weeks and should be able to assess progress made in terms of assisting the official,” said Mncube.
But almost two years on since her appointment in July 2014 Njokwana says she is beyond frustrated at the lack of support.
Determined to make the best of her situation, in 2009 she attended the Pioneer School for the Blind in Worcester in the Western Cape where she took a switchboard training course.
She later worked for Old Mutual in Cape Town on a contract basis, and in 2014 the position at the high court was advertised and specifically stated that “only disabled candidates would be considered for the position”.
Njokwana described her joy at landing the job in her home province, saying: “It was like a dream come true because I was really looking forward to it. It was a part of my dream to work for the department of justice since I did part of criminology at varsity level. So I was really looking forward to it and considering the fact that at Old Mutual I was not permanent, so I was really happy.”
She told ANA she had been begging management to buy the equipment which would enable her to do her job to the best of her ability.
“The software is called ‘JAWS’; it’s a screen reader and for a blind person that it makes it easy to access information. I explained to managers several times that I need this but there are so many excuses.
“I got all the quotations for the equipment but they said that it cannot be approved because at that time it was the end of the financial year. Another time they said they were awaiting for approval from the Seta [Sector Education and Training Authority]. The court manager at one stage said there were no funds available in the budget, so I just don’t know where to go with this anymore.”
The JAWS (Job Access With Speech) system costs about R15 000 and is a computer screen reader which allows blind people to read the screen, mainly with a text-to-speech output.
Njokwana’s frustration festered and she finally found the courage to write a letter to her superiors claiming that her rights were being violated and all she needed was to be equipped so that she could feel “part of the family”.
An excerpt of the letter reads “It is a violation of my rights for being deprived an opportunity to participate on work-related matters as I do not have access to information circulated to other employees due to the lack of speech software that should be installed on my computer in my office.
“I have tried many times to explain what needs to be done to fully equip me in order to feel part of the family. For instance, I find it difficult to fully engage during staff meetings, a move perpetuated by lack of information that I cannot easily access like other employees do,” she wrote.
African News Agency
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