The Women, Family, and Community Development Ministry today sought to assure disabled activists that the community was not being sidelined.

This is after a group, the Independent Living and Training Centre (ILTC) Malaysia, was unable to meet and submit a memorandum with minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and deputy minister Hannah Yeoh yesterday.

In a statement today, the ministry said that it had received the memorandum and is reviewing it, adding that it is always open to receiving suggestions and input from any quarters to empower the disabled.

However, it stressed that it already has continuous engagement with disabled groups.

This includes at the National Council for the Disabled, which meets twice a year and whose meetings are chaired by Wan Azizah.

"The ministry's focus currently is to ensure that one percent of the disabled community are working, something that the previous government could not achieve," the ministry said.

Yesterday some 20 ILTC Malaysia activists staged a protest outside the ministry's Putrajaya headquarters, claiming that Wan Azizah and Yeoh had failed to look after the disabled.

They claimed the duo had run away from meeting them.

The group was further incensed when they spotted a ministry car parked in a disabled space, and put a sign on it asking how that individual was disabled.

Speaking to the media, ILTC president G Francis Siva also urged the government to relook policies involving the disabled, including employment allowances, and aid for caring for the disabled.