Bar association of Tanzania
Mainland, the Tanganyika
Law Society (TSL) has called on the government to provide bail to remandees as
well as pardoning of categorised inmates to help strengthen the protection of
other inmates in prisons against COVID-19.
The TLS President, Rugemeleeza Nshala |
In a statement released yesterday, the bar
association said the pardon should also consider their age, state of health,
length of detention and good conduct.
The association appealed to the government to impose
a 21-day countrywide lockdown and that social activities and public meetings
including those organized by political leaders be proscribed during the period.
Noting that the World Health Organization (WHO) had
announced Covid-19 as a global pandemic, the statement underlines that WHO
“directly pushes countries to take serious measures which include lockdown,” it
said.
The TLS President, Rugemeleeza Nshala said however
the step should not touch servants in the health sector, security organs, ports
and commodity transportation.
Other recommendations include allowing
non-congested trading in the streets where people can access goods and services.
Equally, health attendants should be capacitated
with the required protective equipment and education so as to provide quality
services to the wider community, he further stated.
He also proposed that public transport should be
banned for the 21 days of lockdown.
“We also were recommending more special strategies
which include widespread testing so as to identify those who are infected so as
to isolate and treat them,” he said.
“We should also disinfect cities and towns; this
will easily fight the spread of the virus. The government should also consider
providing tax exemptions to traders, employees and others as most economic
operations have been affected by the disease,” he further remarked.
TLS also recommends that the general public should
be given protective tools such as sanitizers and masks for free as most of them
live in abject poverty.
“It is also high time financial institution to
respond to the disease by reducing loan interest rates as well as putting
emergency policies to ensure that all debtors are given more time to repay
their loans.
“The government should also direct landlords not to
collects rent fees from tenants for three months or until things calms down. We
also recommend that a special strategy should be developed to start supplying
food for free to families that are in dire need.”
Employers should now come up with a special
strategy to enable employees work from home, the advocates’ body counseled.
“The use of natural remedies should be emphasized
to ensure that more people use alternative medicines to fight the disease.
Courts in the country should also suspend hearing of cases for 30 days,” he
said.
On Monday, Covid-19 cases reached 254 as new 84
cases were recorded countrywide with 10 deaths.
As of yesterday, globally confirmed cases
surpassed 2.5m, 171,810 deaths with over 659,000 recoveries. The coronavirus
has affected virtually all countries and territories around the world. - Africa
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