‘Beneficial’ owners of registered but dormant companies face Brela’s axe
No one is PEFECT? This cannot be, for the word “pefect” doesn’t exist in the English lexicon! Without doubt, the artist who penned this message had instructions from the proprietor of the daladala pictured here, which plies the Airport - Kisesa route in Mwanza City, to paint the word PERFECT (note the letter R which we have introduced). Trust signwriters! PHOTO | COURTESY OF READER
What you need to know:
- In the last-but-one paragraph, the scribbler reports further: “Last year, the government urged all companies to disclose their respective BENEFICIAL owners but until January, only 14,026 companies complied…”
- What can “beneficial” owners of a company be? Could it be that the scribbler meant to say “BEFITTING owners?” That is, the appropriate owners.
Before me is a copy of the Saturday, May 28 edition of the tabloid closely associated with this columnist, Page 3 of which has a story entitled, ‘Brela threatens to revoke registration of 5,000 dormant firms’. In her intro, our scribbling colleague writes:
“The Business Registration and Licensing Agency (Brela) yesterday announced its intention of revoking registration of 5, 676 companies WHICH it claims TO BE dormant…”
Well, how about: “…5, 676 companies IT claims ARE dormant…?”
In Para 2, the scribbler says: “The state-run agency said THERE ARE SOME OF THE dormant companies which have not submitted THEIR EITHER annual returns or financial statements…”
This is a case of a recklessly writing which renders the sentence virtually incomprehensible. I will simply provide a rewrite instead of doing a clinical dissection of our colleague’s sentence. Here we go: “The state-run agency said THERE ARE SOME dormant companies which have not submitted EITHER THEIR (not their either!) annual returns or financial statements…”
In the last-but-one paragraph, the scribbler reports further: “Last year, the government urged all companies to disclose their respective BENEFICIAL owners but until January, only 14,026 companies complied…”
What can “beneficial” owners of a company be? Could it be that the scribbler meant to say “BEFITTING owners?” That is, the appropriate owners.
The use of the articles ‘a’/‘an’ (indefinite) and ‘the’ (definite) and zero (in which you don’t use either of the aforementioned two), is one of the major headaches of those of us to whom English is an alien language.
It is more so us, Kiswahili speakers, because we actually don’t have this grammatical category in our national language! The good thing, however, is that there is a rule that guides the user in regard to which article is/isn’t right in the context of what you’re saying. Check that out, reader. A Google search will help.
A colleague writing for the above-cited tabloid (same date) exemplifies our problem with articles in her story entitled, ‘Farmers to enjoy investment in new fertilizer plant plan’. She says in one of the paragraphs:
“The plant… will have ‘a’ capacity of producing 20 million litres of fertilizer per annum, helping to encounter ‘a’ shortage of the commodity in the country.”
In another paragraph, the scribbler says, “Mr Ngairo clarified that ‘a’ demand for fertilizer in Tanzania is 700,000 tonnes per year…”
In all the cases where I put quotes to identify the indefinite article (a), the scribbler has erred, because the correct article should be “the”.
Still on Saturday, May 11, on which day Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet has a story on Page 3 with the headline, ‘State raises allowances for public servants’. In this one, the scribbler says in his intro:
“Public servants…may again have every reason to smile following the decision by President Samia Suluhu Hassan to endorse the PERMIT to HIKE per diem rates for them…”
There aren’t any problems with grammar here, but I have a bone to pick with the use of the verb “hike”. Why, it smacks of something negative. My dictionary defines “hike” as increasing prices, taxes, etc, suddenly by large amounts.
By connotation, such increases (hikes) are bound to hurt people. Like when traders increase prices of foodstuffs during the holy month of Ramadhan! That is hiking. Or when the government increase fees charged to mobile phone users. That’s hiking. But when the government increases its workers’ salaries or per diems, that is sweet, and the verb “hike” sounds inappropriate. I am talking about the choice of words to suit the context. That is, diction.
In another story continued to Page 3 from Page 1, entitled, ‘Media urged to rally behind census preps”, the scribbler reports a minister as underscoring that a census “is an important aspect for planning, distribution and provision of SOCIAL ECONOMIC development.”
Nope! We don’t say “social economic” development; the expression is SOCIOECONOMIC development.
Ah, this treacherous language called English!
