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The Financial Burden
In the past few weeks, we have seen folks lighting themselves on fire to end their lives, and all of it involves financial stress. It is easy for the opposition wallahs to blame the current government for such loss of lives. Still, nobody really wants to talk about inflation and rising food, education and healthcare costs, and many more problems with our economy.
The government employees have a much easier life in Nepal. Not all of them are corrupt or have access to or the opportunity to take bribes from service seekers, but all of them do get paid better than the private sector.
We talk about Bhatbhateni and all of them big business houses employing o a few hundred thousand Nepalis, but nobody talks about fair wages. You can employ 22,000 folks at your departmental stores, but their wages give them no room for any savings, let alone pay their room rent, food, and other costs.
Most of our business houses make billions of Rupees in profits every year, and all of them show us their kindness by donating to hospitals, schools, and providing some sort of scholarships to the underprivileged kids. But it seems that most of them have been engaging in insider trading in our securities market, evading taxes, grabbing public land and faking their VAT bills to gather illegal wealth and then send it overseas for their own financial security.
I think this government should focus more on how to provide affordable education, healthcare, and housing to the general public. We have tons of government land in every ward. Maybe the government can learn a thing or two from Singapore and their HDB revolution that turned a swampy town filled with shanty tin roofs into affordable homes for almost all of its citizens.
When it comes to education, we need to set a ceiling for tuition fees, and it's time the government acts strongly against our school byaparis who make tons of profit but pay their teachers peanuts. Same goes for our hospitals and factories as well.
We need better mental health programs for all of us. It is not easy being a Nepali. Not all of us come from old school money or the newly 'sarkari' illegal rich money. 90% of us have to grind it out and hope for a better future. And when our kids turn 18, nearly all of them want to go abroad for further studies or employment.
I think our minimum wage is around Rs 20,000 per month. But if we look deep into our businesses, 90% do not even pay that much. No wonder, all our kids want to go to Dubai or Australia or Malaysia, depending on their parents' capacity to seek out loans or funds to send them abroad.
It's time our migrant workers get some respect and end all discrimination and bribe-seeking culture at our labor departments, immigration, and other government agencies. We just don't have the dough to fund anything, and our government needs some time to figure out how to export more and import less.
We also cannot continue to blame the Ranas, then the House of Shah, and then the old school parties for making us one of the poorest nations on Earth. They have done their share of looting and hopefully we are pretty certain that this government will be more honest and accountable than those in the past.
It will take time for us to rise and figure out ways to make this country better. I think we are moving on the right track when it comes to good governance and meritocracy, but we still lack pragmatism.
This government cannot fail, and we must do our part as law-abiding citizens to support the country by paying our fair share of taxes, following the laws of the land as well. The government should focus more on exports and how we can build adequate infrastructure, and also provide incentives to increase our foreign tourist arrivals from a million to at least 5 million in the next five years.
Taking your own life to ease your pain is not the solution. Maybe, providing a Rs 1 lakh emergency loan to all tax-paying citizens could ease some of the burden most of us seem to face. It could be a low-interest, 5-year thing which makes it easier for us to pay back, and such a loan could ease some of our financial burden when we face a medical crisis or need to pay our kids' educational fees on time rather than seeking loansharks!
I think PM Balen is doing a good job, meeting entrepreneurs and seeking their advice and hearing their grievances and trying to come up with a plan to address the economic issues in our land. Let's hope we first work out how to provide affordable food, education, and healthcare to the public first and make it our top-most priority for now.
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