Making A Better World - Milton Louw

  "The designation of prostitution as a special human rights issue, a violation in itself, emphasises the distinction between prostitution and other forms of female or low-status labour... however exploitative they are. It thus reinforces the marginal, and therefore vulnerable, position of the women and men involved in prostitution. By dismissing the entire sex industry as abusive, it also obscures the particular problems and violations of international norms within the industry which are of concern to sex workers." Thus anything but legal status for sex workers leads to marginalisation and abuses: "even in the many countries where prostitution itself is not illegal, sex workers cannot secure the minimum basic standards which other workers have acquired as far as conditions of work or their personal safety are concerned. It also means that the police frequently fail to take action to help the significant minority among prostitutes who really are victims of slavery."...

  Namibia does not yet have a legal framework to protect personal details such as full names, date of birth and personal contact details. In fact, many businesses and government departments are not even trained in what is considered personal information. Take for example the website of the Law Society of Namibia (LSN). On its “Find a Firm or Practitioner” page ( https://lawsocietynamibia.org/find-a-firm-or-practitioner/ ), it shows public information in a browser window, namely Name, Surname, Designation and Industry. If, however you investigate the coding of the page, it will also give you the Full Names, Date of Birth, and Personal Cellular Number of all its members. The ability to save information on a computer and share this electronically necessitates legislation to be promulgated that protects the abuse of this information. These laws are especially necessary in our Information and Communication enabled society where information is stored on electronic retrieval systems. ...

  I have attached below an explanation of the advantages and disadvantages when banks set their own interchange fees. As you can see, if they do it themselves, it benefits the banks. BUT, all the disadvantages are on the side of the merchants and the consumers. As a consumer activist, I was pleased when PAN - Payments Association of Namibia took the step that made it easier to compare costs between banks. In the Namibian market, I am afraid that banks will disadvantage the poorer consumer, causing them to pay more. If however, the PAN costs are made the maximum, we will all benefit from it since banks must compete but not go over a certain amount or percentage. in essence, it is about how regulations are applied to ensure fairness and competitiveness in the market. ______________________________ Interchange fees are charges paid by merchants to card issuers each time a debit or credit card is used to make a purchase. When banks set their own interchange fees, it can have a range o...

Ek heg hieronder 'n verduideliking aan oor die voordele en nadele wanneer banke hul eie interbankfooie bepaal. Soos jy kan sien, indien hulle dit self doen, is dit tot voordeel van die banke. MAAR, al die nadele is aan die kant van die handelaars en die verbruikers. As 'n verbruikersaktivis was ek bly toe PAN - Payments Association of Namibia (Betalingsvereniging van Namibië) die stap geneem het wat dit makliker gemaak het om koste tussen banke te vergelyk. In die Namibiese mark is ek bang dat banke die armer verbruiker sal benadeel, wat hulle meer sal laat betaal. Indien egter die PAN-koste as die maksimum gestel word, sal ons almal daarby baat vind aangesien banke moet meeding, maar nie oor 'n sekere bedrag of persentasie gaan nie. In wese gaan dit oor hoe regulasies toegepas word om regverdigheid en mededingendheid in die mark te verseker. _______________________________________ Interbankfooie is fooie wat handelaars aan kaartuitreikers betaal elke keer as 'n debie...

  The Namibian reported in the edition of 11 June 2018 ( https://www.namibian.com.na/68242/read/SSC-leak-exposes-personal-info-online ), about the data leak noticed last week on the website of the Social Security Commission (SSC). The reporters that took up the story were able to alert the appropriate staff and the data leak was closed on Sunday, 10 June 2018. As the leak has now been closed, the following is an overview of the occurrence and what should have been done to prevent such events in other organisations. The Director of the Namibia Consumer Protection Group (NCPG), Milton LOUW, is an IT expert and owner of Aardvark Investments, a company that often undertakes tracing for insurance companies wishing to trace people who are due monies but their contact details are no longer current. On Thursday 7 June 2018, a routine search for “Box 1141, Oshakati” showed the following results on Google. Clicking on this link opened up the following page. Once in this directory, there are...

One of the biggest problems in starting a family is that most of the things I want, such as furniture, motor vehicle, etc. costs more money than what I earn in a month. The only option for purchasing these high cost items is to either save or to take it on credit. For myself, I have learned the hard way that it is better to save and buy later, rather than purchase on credit and not be able to afford the monthly payments later. Unfortunately, most consumers still prefer to buy on credit and can find themselves borrowing recklessly and then becoming “over-indebted”. In many countries of the world, a law has been enacted as a National Credit Act that promotes an effective, fair and accessible credit market and to help protect consumers from “reckless lending” and “over-indebtedness”. Unfortunately, Namibia has not yet enacted many such consumer laws yet. Under such a credit environment, debt counselling is included as a tool to help consumers get out from under debt. These debt counsello...

  List No. 4 is being released on 1 September 2023 All  Pension Funds in Namibia must in the month of January each year publish statements of benefits that have remain unclaimed for a period of five years or more in terms of section 93(1) of the Administration of Estates Act, 1965 (Act No. 66 of 1965) in the Government Gazette. NAMFISA has noted in 2019 that not all funds have been publishing these lists as required and is busy enforcing this.  Several funds are using the Consumer Registration Database of over 1 million records and have had some success in tracing these members or their beneficiaries. A database has also been created to capture all the data from thepublishezd Gazettes since the early 1970’s. It is expected that by February 2023, this database will be available to the public. You can search to see if you or your family are beneficiaries of unclaimed monies: GIPF:  https://www.gipf.com.na/member-benefits/unclaimed-benefits/ Sanlam:  https://milton...