QUESTION THE DAY
The answer to this question is in the negative. Why is it in the negative. The reason is simple. Take out a hundred dalasi note and look at it very closely. What did you see at the top edge of the middle of the note ? It should read : “promise to pay on demand the sum of …….”
The paper money is supposed to represent something kept somewhere that has value. We all agree to receive the paper money based on the promise that we could exchange it for material things that are equal in value to the material thing that the paper money represents. The paper money is therefore a promissory note.
It is like the note one writes as promise to pay on a given date when one receives a loan from someone. If the person dies, one could claim the money by tendering the promissory note. Each country promotes exchange of goods and services by producing paper currency.
However, if one takes a currency like the Dalasi to South Africa, it would be worthless to the person.
Money is only money if we accept it as legal tender within countries or across borders. That is the first point to note.
The question now arises : Who is authorised to produce legal money?
According to Section 161 Subsection (2) of the Constitution, “The Central Bank shall be the only authority to issue the currency of The Gambia.
Hence no authority should issue the currency of the Gambia other than the Central Bank.
Needless to say, there are certain features put in each currency to make it legal. Hence a magician has to get money from someone or produce counterfeit currency which would not have the regular features.
One may now ask: Is it possible for a ghost to take legal money from a bank to enrich the customer of a marabout or magician?
The answer is in the negative. In short, would a judge in court acquit and discharge a cashier of a bank who claims that shortage was caused by a Ghost intruder ?
The laughter the answer is likely to provoke should confirm that anybody who claims to have the supernatural powers to produce legal tender should be seen to engage in one form of trick or another.
We therefore need knowledge-based society so that poverty will not drive people to become poorer by being deprived of the small amount of money they possess.
To be fooled once is innocence. To be fooled twice is naivety. To be fooled trice is buffoonery.
