FOR the past two-three months my electricity bill has been BD30-plus a month out of which BD8-plus – for the corresponding months in 2019 – is paid by the government as per its Covid-19 assistance programme.
My domestic need for electricity is almost the same as last year’s. A little plus-minus fluctuation is always expected but not an all-of-a-sudden manifold increase, unless either the meter has joined some marathon race or the calculation formula has changed!
It is out of the question that as a common man, like many others interpreting the wording of the government kindness that it would pay for three months, in greed I started using electricity as “free for all”. Certainly not. Believe it or not, this 75-year-old Bahraini, as a matter of principle, is against any sort of subsidies, loans or bills written off because, as a true Bahraini, he believes that in today’s international financial recession such deeds are an undue burden on the state and affect other more vital public interest projects.
I am a low-paid employee yet I believe every one of us has an obligation to help the state by not just becoming a burden on it, but by sharing with it by way of token taxes and being careful of any waste of electricity and water.
These are just ordinary words but they are almost the same as Zuhair A Tawfiqi mentioned in his column, ‘We must all participate in nation-building’ (GDN, October 13).
I also don’t believe the lower- and middle-level “businesses” have grossly suffered due to Covid-19, demanding government compensation in one form or the other. The business community has for decades been earning huge profits. That is why from one shop, they expand into two and then three. They have excess earnings saved for a rainy day. The example of this can be taken from the fact that many cases of non-payment of salaries to low-paid workers have come to light in the recent past. The business owners through their management tell us stories of shortage of funds, shortfall in business, etc.
However, if one probes one would find not the slightest dent or slump in the personal lifestyle of the businessmen concerned and their families due to this so-called shortage of business.
What does that tell us? These businessmen are in the habit of always crying wolf, claiming a slump in business.
&uuid=(email))