There is an urgent need for the management of Nawec to alleviate the sufferings and hardships of its customers trying to buy cashpower. More often than not, one would go to a cashpower sales point only to be told ‘there is no network’. And the hassles involved are precarious since one has to go from one outlet to another in order to stave one’s family from being left in the dark.
This causes a lot of frustration and makes one to wonder whether Nawec was really ready when they were installing the facility. This blameworthy ‘network’ is really killing us. A case in point was Saturday, 24th May, when football fans were preparing to watch the final of the European champions league finals between Real Madrid and Athletico Madrid and suddenly there was a general breakdown of ‘network’ at all the cash power outlets in the Greater Banjul Area. Nawec should summon all the experts who built or constructed the cashpower system for a re-assessment so as to render it more effective and efficient for the optimisation of its capacity for its users.
Nonetheless, I want to seize this opportunity to thank Nawec’s management especially the managing director and all the other partners, for their brilliant foresight in introducing the cashpower system in the first place.
Lamin Daffeh
Lamin
Impose age restriction on gamblers
Dear editor,
It has been experiential that the effects of proliferated video clubs, spot betting, play stations, video games, street table-top games, casinos, and lottery and gaming houses among related activities are taking a negative toll on the attitudes and lives of children in the country particularly in the urban areas.
Many under-aged and juvenile children particularly kids of school-going age are habitual visitors to these gaming halls and play stations on the streets. They refuse to go to school. Most children leave their homes telling their parents they were going to school. Instead they end up at these dens of iniquity spending their lunch money on destructive games of chance. The authorities should impose age restrictions on who could gamble or engage in spot-betting in The Gambia.
These things are not meant for children. This is what is stipulated in the Children’s Act of 2005. However, it seems these gaming places more often than not flout these rules and laws. Unless necessary steps are taken, these places will just spawn a generation of failed school drop-outs who will end up being liabilities to their families and the wider society. The situation is aggravating and for the protection of our young people’s education, there is a serious need for authorities especially those who issue licenses and the custodians of the law to do proper inspection and auditing of all such places in order to regulate them.
Nogoy Bah
Sinchu Alagie
Police not to blame
Dear editor,
I want to inform for the understanding of the general public that we keep blaming the police for what they are not responsible of when we are ourselves are to blame. I don’t think the police would just go invite someone to their stations or post over nothing or without any instruction. They would not do that and we should try to understand them and always cooperate whenever and wherever they are effecting arrest. But may I ask, whether the police have the right to arrest a person without a warrant. And also, who should be the one to issue such a warrant. During the course of arrest, what are the rights of the person/s being arrested. Do the arresting officers need to recite the rights of the offender/s to him or her at the point of arrest for purposes of awareness? Where do we stand here, I think people would need some light to be shed on the full instruments surrounding an effective arrest and processing for the knowledge and safety of those involved. And from the spot of arresting scene to the destination of the arrestee, what type of management is to be applied on the person? In fact, are the police supposed to handle someone under their custody? The reason for all these inquiries is because there are lots of complaints from people of being manhandled or even brutalized by the police and other security agents when arrested. This is not professional. The law says that “every accused person is innocent until proven guilty by a court of law”. Meanwhile, the general public should know that police take orders, they do not give them. I am putting my pen on pause until I hear something from some learned person on this subject matter concerning mismanagement of offenders.
Simon Gomez
Brufut
]]>
