LAW SOCIETY IN TANZANIA CALLS FOR RELEASE OF REMANDED INMATES

By Our Correspondent, Dar es Salaam TANZANIA

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