The signing ceremony was held at the office of the out going UTG vice chancellor’s office at the University’s AdministrativeBuilding in Kanifing.

The objective of the social work program in the Gambia is to provide the needed training for the growing demand for social work professionals in the country and the sub region as well as upgrade the delivery capacity of those already rendering social work services without basic knowledge of social work.

According to officials, SOS will host the certificate program while UTG to host the diploma program.

Speaking on the occasion, the UTG vice chancellor professor, Andrew Stigen expressed pleasure in seeing the program come to a reality.

He described the program as very important and interesting. He opines that for the program to be more relevant in future there is a need to provide specialisation in social work.

Mr.Josef Kittl Director SOS-Kinderdorf International Regional Office for North/West Africa described the day as historic. “An NGO partnering with UTG to offer such a professional course is very significant”.

Mrs.Fanta Bai Secka, Director Social Welfare, said the Gambian communities need social workers while welcoming the introduction of the program.

Other speakers include Dr.Saidou Jallow Permanent Secretary for Higher Education, Dr.Senghore, Head Social Sciences and Mr. Lamin Sam Jaiteh Registrar UTG respectively.

Reports monitored by the Daily Observer indicated that the US government is expected to give Taiwan bipartisan support tomorrow as the nation launches its 12th bid to obtain observer status at the annual World Health Assembly (WHA), said Joseph Wu, Taiwan's representative in Washington yesterday.

Speaking to Taiwanese reporters, Wu said the US had agreed to throw its weight behind Taiwan’s bid as it has done since 2004, but would not waver from opposing Taiwan’s participation in international organizations that require sovereignty.

Wu said US Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt was expected to write a letter to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan on granting Taiwan observer status at the WHA, as he has done in past years.

The WHA is the highest decision-making body within the WHO. The assembly meets annually in Geneva, Switzerland, to deliberate on issues such as new member applications.

This year’s WHA begins tomorrow and will run through Saturday.

Wu said that the US, along with Japan and Canada, were expected to cast affirmative votes if Taiwan’s bid is successfully put to the floor for a roll-call vote tomorrow.

Several ranking members of the US House of Representatives and the Senate have penned three letters to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to express their concerns about Taiwan’s growing difficulty in attending sponsored technical meetings following the signing between Beijing and the WHO of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) limiting Taiwan’s access to WHO events.

The MOU not only prevents the WHO from exercising its mandate of safeguarding global public health, but it also jeopardizes the health rights of the 23 million people in Taiwan, the letters said.

Wu said that despite the election of Ma Ying-jeou as president, Beijing had not shown any signs of easing its grip on Taiwan’s international space.

Under the MOU, Sonatel has agreed to increase The Gambia’s Internet Bandwidth capacity from 34 megabits to 68 megabits by the end of April 2008. This, according to the release, is also envisaged to be doubled by the end of the year to STM1 capacity. The cost of the bandwidth has also been negotiated, and a discount of 28% has been given to GAMTEL.

The MOU is the outcome of a mission recently embarked upon by Ms Fatim Badjie, Secretary of State for Communications, Information and Information Technology, and Mr Rein Zolsman, Chief Executive Officer of Gamtel, to Senegal.

“This increase in capacity will undoubtedly provide greater access and affordable high speed internet services to Internet Service Providers and consumers,” stated the release.

“A new microwave link will be installed in three months time to provide connectivity between Banjul and Kaolack, and through Fibre Optic to Dakar for enhancing GAMTEl’s network, and also serve as a back-up to the South Bank Optical Fibre in the event of fibre cut or damage.

“A technical committee comprising staff of GAMTEL and SONATEL has been set up to regulate the spilling signals between Gamcel and the Senegalese GSM operator, ALIZE, especially around the boarders.”

“This,” the release added, “would help subscribers avoid unnecessary and costly roaming signals in their own territory.

“SONATEL and GAMTEL have agreed to reduce the charges for roaming by 50% to make it more affordable to the people of the two countries, and the bulk of the reduction would trickle down more to the consumers.”

The release further stated that The Gambia and Senegal, through their technical institutions, have agreed to make use of each others’ expertise when the need arises.

At the 1st day of WiMAX Forum Taipei Showcase & Conference, Ministry of Economic Affairs of R.O.C. Taiwan (MOEA Taiwan) not only set M-Taiwan Pavilion supervised by Industrial Development Bureau of MOEA Taiwan, but also signed MOUs with 5 world-class WiMAX companies to enhance the advance of networking industry in Taiwan especially in WiMAX environment.

In the contract-signing ceremony, MOEA Taiwan chose Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola Inc., Nokia-Siemens, Starent Networks, and Sprint-Nextel to sign MOUs with different technologies such as interoperability testing (IOT) to help companies in Taiwan with testing and purchasing WiMAX networking devices and develop solutions with high prime costs to expand the opportunity in global marketing.

"Governments and networking industry in Taiwan is still promoting on M-Taiwan project, the investment with WiMAX infrastructure in Taiwan is the 2nd highest in the world, we estimate that by 2012, the production value of WiMAX will break NT$140 billion. With the MOUs signing, the industry development of WiMAX infrastructure in Taiwan will be improved rapidly with product testing and lots ways of applications to ensure the prime position in the global WiMAX chain." Steve Ruey-long Chen (Minister of Economic Affairs of Taiwan) remarked at the Ceremony.

According to MOEA Taiwan, this MOUs signing is the 2nd time after signing with world-class companies like Intel, NEC, Nortel, and Rohde & Schwarz Technology. With this MOUs signing, it will improve the networking industry and WiMAX infrastructure in Taiwan.

Following reports of a proposed meeting by some Gambians in the United States of America to discuss possibilities of reviving the disintegrated opposition alliance, NADD, Lamin Waa Juwara, the leader of NDAM, has indicated that NDAM would never be part of what he termed as an “ill-fated alliance” any more.

In an exclusive interview with this paper, Mr. Juwara opined that the Gambian opposition is out of business, charging that some people went into the alliance with ulterior motives. “Because under normal circumstances the Memorandum of Understanding, if there was commitment, should have been agreed upon within 2 weeks but it took us 2 years,” he said. He further expressed the belief that “there is lack of commitment and valuable time cannot be wasted and at the end of the day it is going to fail…That is the reality on the ground”, he added.

Mr. Juwara maintained that the Gambian opposition has failed and that until now no single political party is prepared to accept having made errors or failures, noting that they instead decided to put up what he called frail excuses. “How can you go forward if you don’t want to accept the reality?” he queried.

Mr. Juwara concluded that the most vital thing for the opposition is to ask themselves about what they have to do.

In a show of collaboration between a bank and its customer and in line with its well-known innovative posture in the banking industry, Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Limited (GTBank), has concluded arrangement with the employees of Medical Research Council, (UK), The Gambia to set up and manage a Staff Retirement Adjustment Fund, a press release from GTB stated. 

The scheme is the initiative of MRC employees and it is a fund created jointly by MRC staff and the bank and in which members would voluntarily and individually contribute money into their account every month, in foreign currency, added the release. “Withdrawal would not be allowed from the fund until a staff is leaving the services of MRC by which time he/she ceases to be a member of the MRC staff or upon death, at which a nominated next of kin would collect the amount due to the applicable member” the release further stated.

According to the release, accumulated funds are to be managed by a financial institution and returns (interest earned) distributed to contributing members proportionally, based on individual contribution to the fund.

Being a novel idea, the release went on, the MRC sought the professional advice of GTBank to further develop the idea, and the eventual collaboration, though a painstaking process was the birth of what is today known as MRC Retirement Adjustment Funds which took off in July 2007 with GTBank as Fund Manager and Investment Advisers.

“It is structured as a very flexible savings / retirement plan as individual members can know their account position at any point in time upon enquiry from the bank, and the bank is under obligation to render quarterly performance of the fund to the designated members of the union or general assembly from time to time,” disclosed the release.

“The scheme took off with about 379 members of the MRC staff who have individually agreed to a ‘check off’ from their monthly salaries for the purposes of contribution to the fund.”

At the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) guiding the fund, which was held at the Head Office of the GTBank on 8 July 2007, the highly elated trio of the Head of Finance of MRC, (Abdoulie Barry, the current chairman of the workers’ union (Kairaba Kanyi) and chairman of the committee that recommended the novel idea (Mr Serign Ceesay), that represented the MRC staff at the ceremony, were all impressed with the way GTBank worked with the staff in assisting it  actualize the dream. 

Considering the amount of work that went into the preparation, documentation and setting up of this idea, which is considered novel in The Gambia, the presentation room of GTBank on Kairaba Avenue was charged with ecstasy as the respective signatories put their pens to paper on the afternoon of July 8  2007 to sign the MOU.

In the words of the Managing Director of GTBank, ‘’we are delighted to note this landmark development in The Gambian financial market and very impressed with the staff of MRC for coming up with this idea. Being novel and in a view to ensure that the members of staff located in all locations of MRC (Fajara, Basse, Farrafenni, Keneba, Njau) bought into the idea, coordinating and concluding the paper work was pretty difficult, today, it is to our delight that we are witnessing the birth of what would add further safety net to the future of MRC workers, and special commendation should go to the MRC executives and the chairman of the committee that initiated this novel idea”.

Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Ltd. which started operations on the 5th March 2002, presently, has the fastest rate of branch expansion in The Gambia and is rated by industry watchers as the third largest bank in The Gambia based on published 2006 balance sheet size of banks in the country. In addition to its magnificent Head Office situated at Kairaba Avenue, there are four  branches located in Banjul, Serrekunda, Brikama and Senegambia.  Two additional branches are under construction in Kanifing and Serrekunda markets respectively.

The bank offers a wide range of innovative and customer-friendly products and services, including the GTSave and Smart Kid Save accounts, launched recently to boost savings habits of the Gambian public.

GTBank continues to partner with reputable companies and institutions to make the future safer for their employees and it has GTMax, a salary based credit facility for salary earners.

The Taiwanese ambassador to The Gambia, Dr. Patrick Chang, has said the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the RVTH and Taichung Hospital in Taiwan would, in no small measure, help in consolidating the cozy relations between The Gambia and Taiwan.

Dr. Chang made these remarks on Tuesday during the signing of MoU between the two hospitals at a ceremony held at the RVTH boardroom in Banjul.

According to Dr. Chang, the signing of the MoU was a landmark as it would help immensely in establishing fruitful and cordial working relationship between the two hospitals.

The Chairman of RVTH Management Board, Dr. Adama A. Sallah, described the twinning of the two hospitals as a welcome development.

Supt. Yuan-Nian Hsu, Director of Taichung Hospital, said the signing of the MoU would enable the two countries to exchange both resources and personnel to facilitate the training of more health personnel.

The Secretary of State for Health, Dr. Tamsir Mbowe, acknowledged that the training package would help the hospital in their quest for quality health delivery.

Meanwhile, Taichung hospital used the signing ceremony to donate medical items to RVTH.