Desperation of just lacking prudence

Dear Editor,

There are desperate measures for desperate needs but maybe the Samoan Government needs to cut back on government spending. 

Cut back from more debt. If you want to get out of a hole just stop digging would be the obvious remedy to the debt.  

None of us poor Samoans got access to all that government money. 

Prime Minister Tuilaepa says that getting taxed is our contribution to Samoa and he might be right. 

However a contribution is not what it’s called. It’s called a TAX and to me a tax is another way of saying the government takes money from it’s civilians to do whatever the government needs to do like have evenly paved roads and so forth.

Maybe the Samoan Government needs to seek more grants because you don’t have to pay back grants. 

Why don’t they train some of these government officials to focus on writing grants to seek financial aide? 

On a smaller scale of debt, whenever my family members ai kalafu (borrow) money from me I don’t expect them to pay it back and actually I just consider it a donation. 

Now flip that to a bigger scale. you’re the prime minister of Samoa and borrowing is what will help this nation so you continue to borrow yet you haven’t paid back anything. You borrow from New Zealand, China, Japan and whatever other country on earth. 

When Prime Minister Tuilaepa got into office the debt was $15 million and he’s helped that debt increase to $2 billion.  In my opinion being broke is better than being in debt because when you’re broke you don’t owe anybody any money.

 I’d rather be free at Zero than stuck with negative $2 billion. There’s a way to using debt to leverage the budget but not continualy sink it and obviosly the government isn’t aware of how to leverage if the debt went from $15 million to $ 2 billion. Debt means the Samoan government has piled up some bills and some tabs they need to pay. 

Every time Prime minister Tuilaepa gets a new debt it puts a heavy burden on the government. It puts a heavy burden on all of us Samoans. 

History books illustrate that when poor people are angry you’ll see crime and revolution.  America, Cuba and even the Kingdom of Tonga are examples of that. If this is a Christian nation, I thought one of the gospels that Jesus Christ taught was “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”. 

Meek is a synonym for content which is another way to say I’ll work with whatever I got and I don’t need any more. 

Desperation springs out of greed because we’re not content with what we have because we want more. 

Are we desperate or just lacking prudence?

 

Mikaele U.

Samoa Observer

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