Lord, How The Village Will Not Be Broke

Dear Father,

Have you heard that they say our village is broke? They say the people from the village money house have even cut down some of the items on the list for the national cake.

Is that so my son?

Yes, ooh, Father. But how will the village not be broke, when the list of duty free privileges continue to expand, every Tom, Dick and Harry who has the opportunity to serve in our village is entitled to some kind of duty free privilege. And the funny thing about it is that I heard some of the big people have been commercializing it!

Tell me something my son!

Da fire! Ay, my name oo Father! Let the busybody them put me down! They say some of the village big people can tell their friends: saying, “send that container in my name”-that means the amount you suppose to pay to the village just give me half of it.

This is broad day theft and wickedness to the highest degree! This one pass corruption.

Wait Father, before your pressure goes up like the Old Soja man who was off and on during the voting time. Some of them, I heard have abused the duty free privilege to the extent that thousands of dollars that suppose to be paid in the village coffers end up in their pockets.

You remember that dry woman who was the first chief at the money house when the Old Lady came to head the village?

Yes, my son, I remember.

Aah, these are some of the things she used to say. You know us na, when they give us inch we want to go mile.

But Father, as if this one was not enough, the chiefs at the Traditional Council have agreed that the village should now starts giving these social clubs they get around here call political parties money. I mean those who they said came first, second third, fourth, etc depending on where they will want to stop it.

So my son oh
Yes, oh Father

Is this why u are so vex?

No Father, this is not the one that is making me vex.

The one that is making me vex more is the part that they say all the social clubs should also be given duty free privileges. In addition, they are allowed to invest said money into business ventures.

My son stops, rewind, play, what did you just say?

I say the chiefs have agreed to give these social clubs our money with duty free privileges. In addition, they are allowed to invest said money into business ventures.

What?

Can you imagine this Father? The people get free money. They will invest the money and you say to them you have duty free privilege.

This is simply an open door to more recession, because a chairman of a social club can just tell one of his friends to send his container in the name of that social club, and the duties on that container simply ends up in that person’s pocket.

I wonder what were they thinking when they were putting all those things together. If these social clubs want to be empowered, they should go ahead and raise their own funds. Let their members pay dues.

If you boast of having over one million members and each of those members pay at least LD$10, 00 per month, which is enough to run your social club.

But anyway, the people are used to getting free money so the innovative concepts are lacking. The only thing they good at is to make free noise and they want everything free.

The village already has complex problems with limited resources to address them and you want it to support you with the poor people money. Unfortunately for our village, the people who are asking for the money are the ones who have to approve it themselves and so they can easily have their own ways.

My son, are they saying that when they were establishing these social clubs, didn’t they think of designing strategies to sustain them?

Father, I wish I knew what they were thinking at the time, but as I said many of these people believe that our village is a welfare state, so even if they failed to clean their own yards and drainages and they get sick, they want the village to go there and clean it. From the grass-root to the top they all depend on the village job, the village that-no innovation.