Editorial Courtesy The Island

March 25, 2018, 11:11 pm
Monday 26th March, 2018

Parliament has approved a huge increase in the Supreme Court (SC) judges’ pensionable allowances. Interestingly, there was no division in the House when a proposal to that effect was taken up. It was a very rare moment of unity. We thought the government was so broke that it couldn’t increase the salaries of any category of public officials; it is desperate to draw more loans to keep the economy afloat with the help of the newly passed Active Liability Management (ALM) Act. The SC deemed the ALM bill consistent with the Constitution.

Nobody will begrudge learned judges a pay hike. But, there are many other state employees who are struggling to keep the wolf from the door. Needless to say the same is true of all ordinary citizens. The government is trying to keep the inflation rate down not by taking steps to tackle the causes thereof, but by manipulating official statistics. Prices of essentials have gone through the roof. Milk powder prices have been jacked up by Rs. 80 per kilo. A fuel price hike is in the pipeline and that will send the general price level further up.

that the MPs’ hearts don’t melt for ordinary workers? University non-academic workers have been on a strike for nearly one month, demanding what the government promised them. All universities have been crippled as a result, but the yahapalana worthies don’t care a damn about the crisis in the higher education sector. They are busy helping set up private universities.

One sees no difference between the yahapalana government and a druggie or kudu karaya, who is troubled by withdrawal symptoms, where its desperation for funds is concerned. Kudu karayas spare none––not even their old parents; they throttle elderly people to rob money. The government is doing likewise. It has increased the withholding tax on the interest income from senior citizens’ deposits from 2.5% to 5%. In a bid to give this savage act a human face it has exempted the interest income up to Rs. 1.5 million per annum from the tax increase. The worst affected will be the senior citizens who rose to executive grades in the private sector through sheer hard work and saved for retirement while paying income tax during their productive years; they have also paid taxes on their EPF withdrawals. They have deposited their savings with banks or other financial institutions and are living on the interest income in their twilight years; now, they will be made to pay taxes to the government till they go the way of all flesh! The same goes for all other retired professionals.

A government has to collect taxes. But, it must not resort to extortion in the name of taxation. Exacting money from captive senior citizens who are dependent on interest income is worse than extortion.

Shame on the self-righteous yahapalana leaders who have stooped so low as to rob the elderly! They are in the current pecuniary difficulties because they have failed to get their act together on the economic front. They offered the public sector workers a huge election bribe to the tune of Rs. 10,000 each a month in the form of a pay hike to win the presidential election in 2015. They had to make good on that promise in view of the general election that followed a few months later. They were banking on economic assistance from the foreign governments which backed the 2015 regime change to give the economy a turbo boost, only to be disappointed. They have had to settle for ‘gloveless’ handshakes and photo opportunities! They didn’t care to curtail criminal waste of public funds and corruption. Instead, they and their cronies got involved in mega corrupt deals. The Treasury bond scams have cost the state coffers dear.

The government ought to adopt frugality and curtail its wasteful expenditure drastically instead of burdening the public, especially the senior citizens, with more taxes. It mustn’t make the public bear the cost of its bungling.