Looking at this budget from the eyes of people with limited resources and hoping for state assistance in different forms and fashion, this would be a good budget!With goodies ranging from increased grants and pensions to an increase in the minimum wage and assistance to underprivileged mothers, this budget is as generous as you can get.
But is state-sponsored giving always a good thing? Can it develop the proverbial dependency syndrome in people stifling their true development potential that measures in a budget should seek to facilitate?What is there in this budget, for example, barring the usual incentives to industry and the like, to aid in the development of people as people, in terms of their independence, their creativity, their resourcefulness and resilience for maximising the resources at their disposal?
Are there incentives for individuals to boost their own initiatives in acquiring a home, or educating their children, or becoming small-scale but successful entrepreneurs, or becoming a truly productive worker?The key issue here is not merely succeeding, but using state assistance to energise your own individual capacity which personal growth is all about. But can any budget touch this human component in people?
Can this government touch this aspect of human initiative and capacity?Only to a limited degree I would say, for the nature of politics in this country has to do with appealing to the material side of the voters that matter, namely the grassroots, and all the enlightened thinking about developing the true potential of the individuals, simply disappears in the face of winning those votes.
This appeal to simplemindedness, which is what this exploitation of the dependency syndrome amounts too essentially, is reflected in other policy statements in this budget.
For example, sophisticated patrol boats for the coastline sounds impressive as much as the idea of armoured vehicles for the protective services, but some in-depth thinking would reveal in the first instance, that improved technology in fighting crime would be a more meaningful priority, and in the second, a mass transit system would probably solve our traffic woes than more highways, both arguments offered by Catherine Kumar in her response to the budget.
The point here is that although the politics demands it, an effort should be made to go beyond merely satisfying the baser instincts in people by either appealing to their material side or seeking to impress them with high sounding initiatives.You need to introduce measures that would stimulate their independence, initiative and creativity enabling them to truly grow as a people and by extension, the society.
If you give a man a fish you serve him for a day: teach him to fish and you equip him for life!
Dr Errol Benjamin,
via e-mail