TANZANIA: A GOOD number of African leaders, including our President, were recently in South Korea, and what they said or did while in that country naturally made front page news in their homeland papers.
Hon Samia is quoted on page one of the Custodian (June 6), to have said: “We can bridge Africa’s infrastructure budgets”.
Reporting on this, the paper’s correspondent opened her news item as follows: “Budgets of African countries are faced with the challenge of competing priorities, including the provision of social services which makes the ‘budgets’ insufficient.” If I was editing that article, I would use red ink to strike out the second of the two “budgets”. Why use this noun “budget” twice, in a short sentence, in an opening paragraph of a very important article? Surely, pronouns were invented to avoid such kinds of repetition, surely!
The following would be my version: “Budgets of African countries are faced with the challenge of competing priorities, including the provision of social services, which makes ‘them’ insufficient”. One outcome of the visit is that Zanzibar procured a loan that will enable the construction of a referral hospital and a medical training college.
The Zanzibari Minister of State, Finance and Planning is quoted by the same paper, as saying: “The Project implementation schedule is five years but the government is working to ensure that ‘they are’ completed sooner”.
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We are talking about a project here. It is singular, much as it has a number of components. If we front “Project” as the subject, then the accompanying verbs must take on a singular form, as follows: “The Project implementation schedule is five years but the government is working to ensure that ‘it is’ completed sooner.” On the same front page is a piece carrying sad news, like we are getting to hear now and then from our roads: “13 die after truck, trailer multi-vehicle road crash”.
In brief, the writer narrates what happened: “A truck with its trailer ….. failed to brake and rammed into those ‘vessels’ killing the 13 people on the spot”. By “those vessels”, the writer was referring to a car, a mini-bus, and several motorcycles and a tricycle that were involved in the accident.
These however, are not vessels since a vessel is defined as a ship or large boat; or, a vein or artery that carries blood through the body.
Hopefully, by “vessels”, the writer had “vehicles” in mind. The sentence, therefore, needs a re-write: “A truck with its trailer ….. failed to brake and rammed into those ‘vehicles’ killing the 13 people on the spot”. May the souls of those who lost their life, rest in peace. May the injured get well soon.
Amen. Besides danger from what has now become regular road accidents, betting is another lurking danger, especially when it reaches levels of addiction and when even children are involved.
A news item on page 2 of the Good Citizen, dated 6 June and titled: “Tales of gambling redemption as parents demand stricter laws”, has it all. Somewhere in the first half of the story is reference to how betting turned one Mr AM into addiction: “But as the wins became losses, and the losses piled up, Mr AM found himself caught in a downward spiral he couldn’t escape”.
The sentence is not complete. It lacks a descriptor “from”, to adorn the verb “escape”. Here we go with a re-write: “But as the wins became losses, and the losses piled up, Mr AM found himself caught in a downward spiral he could not escape ‘from’”.
Parents think action should be taken by authorities to restrict access to betting shops and equipment, especially where youngsters are involved: “The influence of betting advertisements and social media on our kids ‘is concerning’”. The phrase “is concerning” does not read right. Why didn’t the writer go for: “is of great concern”, or “is worrying”? I would go for the latter.
“The influence of betting advertisements and social media on our kids ‘is worrying’” Have a nice weekend. lusuggakironde@gmail.com
