The Budget is a tug of war on a shoe string between the government and the people when the government has the only say. The government will have free rein while the people must tighten their belts. The poor shall be used as the straw man.
Some will say the budget is just an administrative top-up to replenish what has been spent and to fund new projects in the pipeline.
This has been going on annually for decades. So too the Auditor-General's report presented this year for the first time before the budget due.
Is that an indication the government is on a real roll to transform itself which means it will be tabling a budget that won't be a rubber-stamped image of past budgets?
On second thoughts, hope is already dashed.
Because much of the budget will have to be allocated to maintain the world's biggest loo's.
How else can magnum's and glocks be flushed down them?
The budget should not be that. It should breach past practice to shake things up.
To do the right things. To do things right. To redefine what a real government must do. To candidly refocus on the actual situation and not on wobbly half-baked visions in silly shallow scared scarred minds.
To commit to real action and not lip service. To remember who has been paying the bills and who have been ambivalently spending their savings and funds without unambiguous result. To break the impasse of us-versus-them, government-versus-the citizens.
Nothing shakes up an organization like a budget set to cut fat and curtail excesses. Nothing shakes up gatekeepers and game-changers like a budget that tests their mettle to the core. Nothing moves a government to transform like facing up to reality squared against the wishes of seasoned citizens.
Forty percent of the government's expenditure is borne by oil revenue. Why not cut it off now and set off the alarm? After all, the oil wells will be drying up soon if not already.
Some will grasp for straws. The country is now Canada's biggest shale gas investor. But one must ask in all respect - does the country have any local shale gas expert who was engaged to help in making that decision to invest US35 Billion over thirty years? Were Husky Petroleum and Japan Petroleum asked why they had fought shy of taking up the offering beyond what will be committed out of the future funds of locals not even yet earned?
We have seen too many mega-sized investments made at the behest of the government and all of them have gone to waste. No, oblivion.
It's the same rigmarole. When Perwaja Steel was mooted, everyone was asleep. Is anyone awake by now?
A sure bet on bad governance is seeing elephant-sized evidence of not learning from history.
And that is why the wake-up call has to be now. Take off the forty-percent revenue in the forthcoming budget and see what can stay and what must be removed in order to contain the situation.
After all, governments these days tend to forget that budgeting doesn't just mean you spend what you can harvest by taxation. It really means in reality how well you can apportion your deficits.
How did we come to this situation today where even basic services and results have to be portrayed as sufficiently good reason to maintain status quo not only of administrations but also of mindsets?
At one time when our economy was on a roll from investment influx and oil growth, we were lulled into a false sense of confidence and comfort. Having only small minds, we did not realize we had to quickly invest in the strategic domains of talent creation and social standards. Instead power was weaponized to abuse the basic structures of good governance. That led to corruption not just of public funds but also of private sector opportunities for honest unimpeded and evolutionary development in globally progressive directions.
As a result we did not lay a proper foundation for true nation-building nor real pari passu interaction with other nations. Which is why today whatever we can see is shallow and shifting all the time. Because the foundation of everything is only based on just-in-time spin. Even that, ridiculously bad. No?
At the top, the same DNA of politicians and so-called leaders, only different from the previous generation in what they wear outwardly.
In the middle, seasoned and tested moderates and pragmatics worn out by private life and public anxiety.
At the bottom, waves of the masses eking simple livelihoods, thereby betoken to wired handouts strung by easy emotions empty of empathy for all, for that matter rationale without race connotations.
The top is only linked to the bottom bypassing the middle.
It's therefore like a dam. As we know, pressure increases downwards in water so that the top may be thin (as in ideas) but the bottom has to be thick (as in clueless) which means the middle is the likeliest spot to break out a fissure.
Therefore if the top is only wired to the bottom, the middle will break when marginal support weakens beyond critical limit, thereby causing the dam to cave in with catastrophic result.
The middle moderates of today are like the dutch boy who tries to plug his finger into the fissure to stop the dam from breaking up.
It is a thankless and increasingly fruitless task.
5 comments:
Some will say the budget is just an administrative top-up to replenish what has been spent and to fund new projects in the pipeline.
This has been going on annually for decades. So too the Auditor-General's report presented this year for the first time before the budget due.
Is that an indication the government is on a real roll to transform itself which means it will be tabling a budget that won't be a rubber-stamped image of past budgets?
On second thoughts, hope is already dashed.
Because much of the budget will have to be allocated to maintain the world's biggest loo's.
How else can magnum's and glocks be flushed down them?
..moving on:
http://is.gd/saqavI
http://is.gd/32ZmWc
The budget should not be that. It should breach past practice to shake things up.
To do the right things. To do things right. To redefine what a real government must do. To candidly refocus on the actual situation and not on wobbly half-baked visions in silly shallow scared scarred minds.
To commit to real action and not lip service. To remember who has been paying the bills and who have been ambivalently spending their savings and funds without unambiguous result. To break the impasse of us-versus-them, government-versus-the citizens.
Nothing shakes up an organization like a budget set to cut fat and curtail excesses. Nothing shakes up gatekeepers and game-changers like a budget that tests their mettle to the core. Nothing moves a government to transform like facing up to reality squared against the wishes of seasoned citizens.
http://is.gd/GW16v1
http://is.gd/TvU46X
http://is.gd/mVaFsE
Forty percent of the government's expenditure is borne by oil revenue. Why not cut it off now and set off the alarm? After all, the oil wells will be drying up soon if not already.
Some will grasp for straws. The country is now Canada's biggest shale gas investor. But one must ask in all respect - does the country have any local shale gas expert who was engaged to help in making that decision to invest US35 Billion over thirty years? Were Husky Petroleum and Japan Petroleum asked why they had fought shy of taking up the offering beyond what will be committed out of the future funds of locals not even yet earned?
We have seen too many mega-sized investments made at the behest of the government and all of them have gone to waste. No, oblivion.
It's the same rigmarole. When Perwaja Steel was mooted, everyone was asleep. Is anyone awake by now?
A sure bet on bad governance is seeing elephant-sized evidence of not learning from history.
And that is why the wake-up call has to be now. Take off the forty-percent revenue in the forthcoming budget and see what can stay and what must be removed in order to contain the situation.
After all, governments these days tend to forget that budgeting doesn't just mean you spend what you can harvest by taxation. It really means in reality how well you can apportion your deficits.
http://is.gd/rHOluk
http://is.gd/0WuAmP
http://is.gd/2NODqN
http://is.gd/UL1PMq
How did we come to this situation today where even basic services and results have to be portrayed as sufficiently good reason to maintain status quo not only of administrations but also of mindsets?
At one time when our economy was on a roll from investment influx and oil growth, we were lulled into a false sense of confidence and comfort. Having only small minds, we did not realize we had to quickly invest in the strategic domains of talent creation and social standards. Instead power was weaponized to abuse the basic structures of good governance. That led to corruption not just of public funds but also of private sector opportunities for honest unimpeded and evolutionary development in globally progressive directions.
As a result we did not lay a proper foundation for true nation-building nor real pari passu interaction with other nations. Which is why today whatever we can see is shallow and shifting all the time. Because the foundation of everything is only based on just-in-time spin. Even that, ridiculously bad. No?
http://is.gd/FnvZQg
http://is.gd/9svNTw
http://is.gd/QjrQRg
Today there are three layers. It's tri-tiered.
At the top, the same DNA of politicians and so-called leaders, only different from the previous generation in what they wear outwardly.
In the middle, seasoned and tested moderates and pragmatics worn out by private life and public anxiety.
At the bottom, waves of the masses eking simple livelihoods, thereby betoken to wired handouts strung by easy emotions empty of empathy for all, for that matter rationale without race connotations.
The top is only linked to the bottom bypassing the middle.
It's therefore like a dam. As we know, pressure increases downwards in water so that the top may be thin (as in ideas) but the bottom has to be thick (as in clueless) which means the middle is the likeliest spot to break out a fissure.
Therefore if the top is only wired to the bottom, the middle will break when marginal support weakens beyond critical limit, thereby causing the dam to cave in with catastrophic result.
The middle moderates of today are like the dutch boy who tries to plug his finger into the fissure to stop the dam from breaking up.
It is a thankless and increasingly fruitless task.
http://is.gd/IRVSbN
http://is.gd/o0IVql
http://is.gd/A6gjaG
http://is.gd/RV8HRQ
http://is.gd/r67OYW
http://is.gd/QH8p8C
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