How does our government understand the free economy? [Archives:2008/1130/Opinion]
Mayisa Mahmoud
It is often said that 'if you want others to obey you, your orders must be affordable.' We had experienced totalitarian governance under which people became accustomed to relying on houses and livelihoods provided by the state. The same thing applies even to job opportunities. Then, we turned to live a new stage of time said to be characterized by free economy and free markets, and one can seek a job, house and subsistence and not stop depending on his/her government.
The state's prestige, status and role in planning and regulating are missing because it doesn't understand the concept of free economy, except in doing things randomly. Under economies, a state has moves, general plans, as well as a role for supervision, oversight and direction. The Yemeni state proved unable to do such things, notably as it cannot create job opportunities for the idle, nor does it work on providing livelihoods for its simple citizens. Instead, it started destroying every passive thing in the community and established ghost housing societies, as well as distributed plans and neighboring units, however, such processes are usually repeated.
The result was limitless problems with regard to the housing issues. It also added an extra burden to the complicated problems, which we are suffering from, due to the irresponsible behaviors of greedy persons holding key government's posts.
Had we but had a look at the experience of other people in the neighboring countries and seen how they do organize their affairs, we would have been shocked. According to their seniority, government employees in the neighboring countries get well-furnished apartments and sometimes villas from their government, plus top quality water and electricity services for very low bills.
In short, citizens in Yemen are the weakest thing since they don't enjoy care, dignity nor even the simplest values of humanity. There is a huge difference between a citizen oppressed in his homeland and a citizen pampered by his government. In Yemen, the government seems to be waging a fierce war on its citizens, who always complain of the expensive electricity and water bills as they can not afford to settle them. Another problem, which the government created for its citizens, is represented by the official procedures related with obtaining permits from municipality agencies to construct houses. Even tax payers, they always complain of being extorted or forced to pay bribes by government servants in the different offices. This situation forced some citizens to seek safer living at the tops of mountains in rural areas where there are no bribes.
Over the past few months, it has been remarkable that citizens turned to immigrate from cities to rural areas and not vise versa. In the past, cities were attracting thousands of rural families that search for better services and living standards, thereby causing prices of estates to skyrocket by at least 20 percent per year. We are questioning when the situations will get improved as the irresponsible government officials are carrying the hammers of destruction to destroy hopes and dreams of the Yemeni people. Frankly, speaking this proverb or famous saying “Those claiming to protect the property are the real thieves” applies to the situations in Yemen.
Source: Al-Ishteraki.net
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[archive-e:1130-v:15-y:2008-d:2008-02-18-p:opinion]
