SMSes for Tuesday 29 MAy 2012

SMS Of The Day *ON accidents. It is just too much. Some of us can’t stomach it anymore. Most of the accidents on our roads are avoidable. Most of our drivers drive over the speed limit. The current fines seem to be nothing to them. Police please, please just take away their driving licences. – Kena

Food for Thought
*I THINK restoring our nation’s morals and discipline requires more than our current approach. Why do parents brainstorm openly in media on how to raise kids and discipline children, knowing full well that children are also listening to or reading the same media? The ideas will not be effective to implement as children then just develop counter-strategies. Isn’t that just like holding management meetings when employees are present, or magistrates meeting when lawyers are present? Why not come up with parents’ forums in media (dedicated channels, websites, print media etc) with strict parental control?

*DO we really have to change the names of towns? We are what we are because of our past and the current names signify our history. If we do away with our past then our future is meaningless. Namibia, we can’t let that happen.
– Worried 14-year-old Ndjebe

Bouquets and Brickbats
*WELL done Paragon with the Fishing Expo!

*A BIG thumbs up to Standard Bank for sponsoring the Walvis Bay Fish Festival. Congrats to the organisers. Our town needed this. All fishing companies need to support this. It seems like the event ran out of fish due to the number of people there. Nevertheless, a good try first time around!

*CONGRATS Lady May and thank you Africa for saving our Queen aka Pink Heels aka Chokola. Jean long time. Where’s the queen of gossip's interview?

*WHAT happened to Jean Sutherland’s update column on Big Brother? We love it. Please bring it back.
Note: You can find regular updates on Big Brother on our daily entertainment pages as well as The Weekender.
– Supplements Department

*WHY do we from Karibib have to pay N$105, the same fare as people travelling from Walvis Bay to Windhoek? That is what I discovered when I wanted to send my children back to school. Is this not corruption? TransNamib fares are killing poor Namibians. Please investigate this practice! Is TransNamib not a state-owned enterprise that should deliver a service to the nation?

*THE Windhoek Country Club does not respect non-smokers, their entire gambling floor is a smoking zone.
– August Maletzky

Education
*I REFER to Catherine Sasman’s article in Monday’s newspaper. If true, the exclusion of economics from the school curriculum will be disastrous for the Namibian nation as this subject is very important in many ways – just think! Already great harm has been done to the teaching and learning of this subject by excluding multiple-choice question papers and replacing them with short-answer question papers. Is this the trend in other southern African countries too?
– Alexander

Health Matters
*FRUIT and Veg Fidel Castro Street, your drain has been overflowing for a week. It is a health hazard! Do something!

*AT Onandjokwe hospital the cockroaches are left running around. Please do something.

*ON Saturday at 22h00 at Rundu State Hospital a nurse and a co-worker were arguing loudly, scaring the patients. This is very unethical.

Labour Issues
*MINISTRY of Labour when will the increases for security guards start ? It’s already the end of the fifth month and nothing has changed. We have been forgotten. Why?

Law and Order
*VEHICLE testing at NaTiS Windhoek. Is it really necessary for the official to drive so fast and even recklessly within the test grounds? He pulls away with wheels spinning, accelerates and then brakes hard. Then exits the yard and enters via the drive-through section, again speeding. All this happens in full view of others busy with driver licence testing and the person whose car is being tested. I will not allow this official to test my car if he can't do it in a proper controlled manner. Determining the condition of the vehicle and assessing brakes, steering, shocks, control arms etc can be done without 'abusing’ a car. Can this situation receive attention from NaTIS please? Or should it become a case for ‘Public Eye’ on NBC TV or one of our newspapers to investigate?

*NATIS Windhoek please try to change the time of booking for a driving licence test. Those of us who work find it difficult to come in the morning for booking and the next day again for the driving. Just do everything on the same day.

*JUSTICE delayed! I need help. I asked for my maintenance case to be transferred to Oshakati but after three months nothing has happened.

*IT is illegal to discharge a firearm in a municipal area. And it is reckless and irresponsible for a nature conservation official to advise the public to shoot at animals on the Windhoek hospital grounds. Who knows how far those bullets will fly and who or what they will hit.

In and From the Regions
*SPEED humps are needed at Oluno’s new pedestrian crossings.

*WE need electricity in Katima’s rural areas. Please consider us and, whoever is responsible, don’t say there is no money because millions are disappearing in different ministries.

*CAN BP Walvis Bay please paint their building because it looks bad when you come down from the bridge.

NBC
*THANK you NBC for thought provoking and informative documentaries during Africa Day. I have a new found admiration for Comrade Samora Machel. Selfless leaders like him are hard to find in Namibia.

*NBC TV what happened to ‘Guiding Light’ that was screened every Sunday at 22h00 and ‘As the World Turns’. Have they finished already?

*NBC please change ‘The Week That Was’ to 18h00 - 19h00 every Sunday. Those other films are not teaching us anything.

*NBC please we want Big Brother, Barclays Premier League highlights and play Namibian local music videos on ‘Whatagwan’, not some from other countries and stop showing DW TV on NBC. We paid our TV licence but we don’t know anything about which Namibians are in Big Brother apart from Lady May. And stop repeating movies.

*NBC the ‘Whatagwan’ programme is a very good platform for talented music artists to entertain us, but repeating the same things is not good. Please improve.
n I WOULD like to salute Dr Niikondo of the Polytechnic of Namibia for the informative and educative lessons for the youth about politics in general on NBC Oshiwambo radio. I urge NBC to repeat this several times.
– Nauta, Okatale

Service Please
*TELECOM was all excited about their new sea cable called Speedlink. All users with 1MB and 2MB ADSL packages were promised their rightful speed but until no change at all. You have been taking us for a ride since ADSL was implemented because you ran out of broadband. You have the best technology at hand and to your advantage but do not know how to use it. Stop the monopoly and allow private companies the opportunity.

*FNB Opuwo please change. Why do you have only one teller serving hundreds of your clients every day? You reserved the other teller for local business people, while other three tellers are completely closed. These are some of the factors why the bank is almost always full? This is also the branch with no privacy for its clients. Please FNB do something.
– Pomwene - Opuwo.

Lost and Found
*I SAM K Shigwedha lost my ID in Windhoek, Otjiwarongo or Outjo! If found please contact: 081-637-3306.

Responses to recent SMSes
*DEAR Namibia Wildlife Resorts board, it doesn’t matter if the current management salaries or travel allowances are in line with what the previous board decided - they obviously didn’t know or care about what they were doing. As the current board, it’s your responsibility to change those wasteful decisions. Or is it so comfortable getting so much money every month that you don’t want change those amounts?

From Namcol
*RESPONSE to Monday, May 28’s SMS on why Namcol learners are only getting modules for life science, and not text books.  Our response is as follows:

The Life Science Grade 10 Study Guides are structured in the form of two modules, containing Units 1-5 and 6-10.  Contents are aligned to the syllabi which are 100 per cent in accordance with the Ministry of Education guidelines. With the exception of geography Gr. 10 and literature, all contents appear in this format.  It enables learners to master the contents better if presented in smaller chunks.  This is a distinctive feature of Open and Distance Learning (ODL), and further makes use of engaging methods such as open spaces for notes, in-text questions and feedback.
For further information please contact us at 320 5241.

Mrs Rholene J. Bok
Manager: Marketing & Sales
Namibian College of Open Learning
Windhoek, Namibia

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