Dancing on the edge of the abyss
Budget 2021 would have been a more than acceptable Budget Speech had we not been under attack by Covid 19 with our economy and indeed all our lifestyle imperilled as a result.
But we are under attack and to say the truth we are not doing so well.
The duty of the government is and should be to lead the country in this battle, not to waste time and money seeking minor goals.
Instead, much as happens in a daily basis, the spiking rate of infections, with all the possible repercussions on the entire health system, gets barely a mention in the Budget Speech.
The result is that rather than reassuring the country that the government knows what it’s doing, the people are left with more doubts and fears than they had before the Speech.
We do not need spend many words to explain our predicament. Our contagion rate is shooting upwards and shows no sign of decreasing. The health system, which was robust, is showing signs of stress and there are areas, such as the availability of nurses, where we may be reaching our limits.
All this is already causing stresses in the economy with hotels and restaurants closing down, with people losing their jobs, with investments not delivering the expected results.
The government did come up with schemes to help businesses under stress and people who have lost their jobs but the needs have continued to rise unabated and the government coffers are not unlimited.
Yet all we find in the Budget Speech are spending programmes spread out as so many toys for ministers to play with. Some are indeed related to curbing Covid which makes them more or less acceptable but others aren’t which leads one to ask if they could not be paused in expectation of better days.
Make no mistake: this is a very serious crisis where the adversary cannot be seen. The economy is under attack and the very basis of society is at risk.
What really worries is the general lack of focus and, coming to think of it, this is a gen
We do not need spend many words to explain our predicament. Our contagion rate is shooting upwards and shows no sign of decreasing. The health system, which was robust, is showing signs of stress and there are areas, such as the availability of nurses, where we may be reaching our limits.
eral comment one can make on the government as a whole. Many in the government service, up to minister level, behave as though the battle against Covid is something that involves Minister Fearne almost exclusively, with some sporadic inputs from the prime minister.
As a people, we risk looking on the pandemic more from the point of view of the restrictions it has brought with it than from the point of view of those who have been infected or who might die as a consequence. Hopefully we will not be made to experience the latter.