“Upgraded facilities will benefit 1,151 secondary pupils, and 3,220 primary pupils” in Zanzibar!

THERE is something good happening to the broadsheet local newspaper, The Custodian, which now appears five days a week.

This good thing is the existence of large and colourful photographs on virtually every page of the paper. Keep it up guys! But, writers of captions accompanying these photographs need to pull up their socks.

The photograph on page two of the Custodian of 30th August shows a female dignitary accompanied by heavy-built men in military and civilian attire.

The caption tells us who these people are: “Mafia district commissioner, AM (in hijab) with members of the Mafia District ‘defence and security’ during ‘on’ ‘an’ inspection tour of Banja village in Kirongwe ward of Tembonyama islet chiefly to assess the state of security there, before ‘endording the signing contracts’ with investors”.

“Mafia District defence and security”, is incomplete. It should be a “defence and security” something, most likely, a committee. The caption could do with capitalisation of some key words, removing one or two and correcting a typo, “endording”, into “endorsing”.

Here is a refined version: “Mafia District Commissioner, AM (in hijab) with members of the Mafia District ‘Defence and Security Committee’ during ‘an’ inspection tour of Banja village in Kirongwe ward of Tembonyama islet, chiefly to assess the state of security there, before ‘endorsing the signing of contracts’ with investors”.

It is our hope that all went well. On the same page, there is a photograph showing his Excellency, the Prime Minister having a tȇte-a-tȇte with a Minister of State in his Office. Who is this Minister?

The answer is in the caption: “Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa has a word with Ridhiwan Kikwete (L), Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (Labour, Youth, Employment and ‘Person’ with Disabilities), in the National Assembly ‘chamber’ in Dodoma ‘city’ yesterday”.

Nothing wrong? No, something wrong. You do not have just one “Person” with disabilities.

There are many of these in our country. So, “Person” should change into “Persons”: “Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa has a word with Ridhiwan Kikwete (L), Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (Labour, Youth, Employment, and ‘Persons’ with Disabilities), in the National Assembly Chamber, in Dodoma City, yesterday”.

A number of schools in Zanzibar are to benefit from Tshs 11.7bn/= set aside for renovation. The story on this good news is to be found on page 6 of the Custodian.

It is titled: “Renovation of schools in Zanzibar to cost 11.7bn/=”. A building inspector for this project is reported to have said: “the upgraded facilities will benefit 1,151 secondary pupils and 3,220 primary pupils, providing a safer and more conducive learning environment”.

The reporter on what the building inspector said was possibly thinking in Kiswahili and writing in English: “watoto wa sekondari, watoto wa praimari”.

In Kiswahili the noun: “school” is implied in “sekondari” and “praimari”. In English, it is not, so, it must be “secondary school pupils”, or “primary school pupils”.

Thus, the building inspector should be reported to have said the following: “the upgraded facilities will benefit 1,151 secondary ‘school’ pupils and 3,220 primary ‘school’ pupils, providing a safer and more conducive learning environment”. Efforts to preserve the nature of Mountain Kilimanjaro are discussed in the Custodian’s Editorial, appearing on its page 8. It is titled: “Planting 8m trees annually to save diminishing Kili glacier is salutary”.

The writer gives us an ideas, as to the purpose of the campaign: “The campaign is intended to prevent ‘the disappearing and iconic glacier’ at the main peak of the mountain”.

You prevent this iconic glacier from doing, or becoming what? I think the sentence should be reorganised.

We want to protect the glacier from disappearing, so the reporting should be as follows: “The campaign is intended to prevent the disappearance of the iconic glacier at the main peak of the mountain”.

Let us all join hands: the glacier at mountain Kilimanjaro must not disappear! lusuggakironde@gmail.com