By Khalaf Al-Harbe
THE Ministry of Labor and Social Development is willing to upgrade the level of companies in the Nitaqat program if they paid a certain amount of money. The Ministry of Education is considering renting some of its buildings to private schools. The Ministry of Health is thinking to treat people injured in traffic accidents at the expense of insurance companies or at the expense of drivers responsible for the accidents if the victims do not have medical insurance.
What is really happening?
The ministries have surpassed the level of austerity and the expenditure control. They have entered into the stage of profit making at people’s expense.
The ministries will gradually forget about improving their services and instead think of ways and means of making money to cover expenses and make some profits.
By so doing the ministries will be oblivious to their important roles of caring for the citizen. They will play true to the Egyptian popular proverb, “If you do not have, you will not get.”
There is a big difference between austerity measures and this greed to make money by hook or crook.
The ministries’ avarice for money will surely lead to a remarkable degradation of their services. Instead of thinking how to improve the services, the officials will be busy to find new mechanisms of making financial gains.
This avarice will open new doors for corruption. It will subsequently clean the pockets of citizens and deplete their wealth.
If the ministries are suffering from shortfalls in their budgets as a result of the current economic situation, then they can reduce the expenses of their ministers and senior officials. Let the minister and the undersecretaries share the same office. Please do not maintain your prestige and privileges at our expense.
I am asking the ministries for an answer: Are you keen on upping the charges of your services?
If the answer is yes, I am offering this column for daily rent. I will repay the newspaper from the proceeds I get from renting this space and keep the rest to maintain my family.
