As I read the headline “Utilities rate review coming,” I could not help but think of the upside down manner by which we are being governed by successive governments.
It seems intuitive that government should use the time of economic prosperity to promote fiscal responsibility by encouraging the population to pay cost or as near to cost price for services rendered, while investing in training to enhance and enrich the skills of our citizens to make a livelihood.
Instead, we do the opposite in times of plenty by bestowing subsidies galore for utilities, distributing food cards and encouraging non-productivity via URP and Cepep, while the private sector is begging and clamouring for employees.
Instead of spending money to equip our people with life-sustaining and entrepreneurial skills during times of prosperity that can see them through times of recession, we choose to hand-out. What is it that they say about teaching a man to fish?
Our policy of make-work programmes is responsible for the over 100,000 illegal immigrants who are working in various sectors while our people remain dependent on the small change paid to URP and Cepep workers.
And now that hard times are upon us, and we have a less-than-skilled workforce (because they were never trained and coached to be self-sustenant), suddenly, we want to hike up prices when we should be leaving as much money as possible in the hands of the people so that they could keep the economy trickling until it picks back up.
It seems that after our governments have failed to inculcate the importance of and provide avenues for skill development, they want to take whatever change you have after you are retrenched, with utilities rate hike, VAT on food items, bumps in fuel, and therefore transport, and property tax.
This can only serve to further sink the economy, making the recovery process longer and more painful, especially in light our dwindling gas and oil reserves.
From biblical times, it was understood that provision should be made for hard times—they used to store from the seven years of plenty for the seven years of famine.
We have been plagued, government after government, by counter-intuitive governance.
Lord, put a hand.
Ghassan Youseph