{"id":231554,"date":"2023-02-26T11:43:22","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T06:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=231554"},"modified":"2023-03-04T16:17:56","modified_gmt":"2023-03-04T10:47:56","slug":"taxing-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/taxing-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxing Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tisaranee Gunasekara<\/a> –<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c…we emphasise that we won\u2019t hesitate at all to unite with all health workers and take tough measures which can paralyse the entire hospital system against this unfair wage cut.\u201d ~ <\/i>Statement by the GMOA (23.2.2023)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Wickremesinghe<\/p><\/div>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s poorest of the poor, their lives devastated by economic collapse, may face a killer blow soon: a crippling of the public health system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That GMOA is planning to \u2018paralyse the entire hospital system\u2019 in protest against a government decision to institute a \u2018wage cut\u2019. Needless to say, \u2018the hospital system\u2019 they are planning to paralyse is the public one, used by those Lankans who constitute the bottommost layers of the income totem pole. The fee-levying private health care system, used by middle and upper layers of society, including politicians, will function smoothly. The very doctors who refuse to treat patients in government hospitals will attend to their private practices with usual assiduity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hippocrates and our own physician-king Buddhadasa, who, according to legend, stopped a royal progress to treat a sick cobra, would turn in their graves at the conduct of these medical merchants.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We excoriate politicians, and rightly so, for their unconscionable and irresponsible conduct, for their greed and their willingness to risk the safety and wellbeing of citizens who sustain them. Are the doctors, who threaten to hold the poorest of the poor hostage to win a wage demand, any better? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The UNP president and the SLPP government will probably condemn the doctors\u2019 strike because they are in power. Had they been in opposition, they wouldn\u2019t have.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Will the SJB, the JVP, and sundry opposition parties have the moral and political courage to ask the doctors not to penalise the already pulverised poor in order to win a wage demand? Will Sajith Premadasa, Anura Kumara Dissanayake or Dulles Alahapperuma possess the decency to tell the doctors to find another weapon to attack the government with?<\/p>\n

The doctors\u2019 demand may be just. But their tactic is supremely unjust. Weaponizing poor patients is heartless and malicious at any time, doubly so in the midst of a calamitous economic crisis. The strike won\u2019t hurt politicians. It will hurt the fiscally impoverished 36% of the population who are missing meals and missing school, the 600,000 families who might lose access to power thanks to the recent electricity hike. The very people, who through indirect taxes, helped fund the medical education of these doctors. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When President Gotabaya and PM Mahinda Rajapaksa reduced health expenditure in the midst of a pandemic, the GMOA doctors remained mute. They were too busy enjoying the rich fruits of Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s 2019 tax cut, the first step in Sri Lanka\u2019s fast-track to bankruptcy. The GMOA bosses were probably among those who whispered sweet lies about tax cuts and instant growth into the ignorant ears of the former Lt. Colonel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Sri Lanka\u2019s avoidable tragedy, the only bad guys are not the politicians. The rot in the political class is a reflection of a widespread and deep-going societal malaise. The politicians are the most culpable. But none of us voting age citizens are completely innocent. If any solution is to work, if any change is to be effective, it must move beyond the simplistic formula of bad politicians and good everyone-else and confront special and vested interests, from monks and military to professionals and privileged trade unions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are there other predators apart from politicians?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the latest IHP survey, while no political leader has a net favourability rating, in a general election, the NPP\/JVP and the SJB will win a plurality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stirring oratory and pie-in-the-sky promises apart, how will a NPP\/JVP or SJB government apportion the economic and social costs of recovery? The answer will depend mostly on how the tax burden is distributed. And on this seminal matter, the SJB and the NPP\/JVP fudges at best. The SJB talks about reducing direct taxes for the uppermost bracket, while remaining silent about which income segment\/s will have to pick the extra tab for that tax break. The NPP\/JVP criticises the current imbalance between direct and indirect taxes, promises to correct it, but says nothing about how.<\/p>\n

The reason is obvious. Neither party wants to anger those professional groups who are demanding tax cuts for themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The demonstrating professionals are not saying they don\u2019t want to pay higher taxes to fund such government waste as the silly Janaraja Perahara or the huge stable of cabinet, deputy, and state ministers. The government \u2013 any government \u2013 must be held to account about how public funds are used. But that is not what the protesting professionals are doing. They don\u2019t want to pay higher taxes, period; irrespective of the identity of the president or the hue of the government. Their reasons have nothing to do with how government borrow and spend and everything to do with how they themselves have lived beyond their means. They too, like successive governments, have borrowed heavily to sustain an unsustainable lifestyle. They want to continue that lifestyle, even as the poorest of the poor are starving. That is the burden of their tax-song. And their tax song will remain unchanged irrespective of who sits in the president\u2019s chair and who forms the government. What is Ranil\u2019s headache today could be Sajith\u2019s or Anura\u2019s headache tomorrrow, if either leader achieves his presidential ambitions.<\/p>\n

The Australian TV channel, ABC News did a feature on Finland\u2019s education system. Arguably the best in the world, it is completely free. Not just the teaching, but also lunches, books, and excursions. Teachers are highly paid; teaching is one of the most sought after professions, and one of the hardest to get into. As a school principal told the interviewer, \u201cSchools can\u2019t raise private funds or to charge fees from parents. All schools are equitably funded from taxation\u201d<\/p>\n