Okaz THE local media has recently quoted Solaiman Al-Dohayan, deputy director of the department of the indirect tax at the General Authority of Zakat and Tax, as saying that there was a strong trend to expand the domain of the selective tax to cover all sweetened products because of their adverse effects on health. The man was talking at a seminar in the Eastern Province to shed light on selective tax, which will be introduced in all member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. If our health was the excuse used to expand the domain of the selective tax, I would like to inform the official of what is really harmful to our health than the chocolate bars and confectioneries that we consume to sweeten our temperament in a life besieged by loopholes from all sides. Let me tell him that what is really harmful to our health is the condition of our streets, which are replete with ditches and potholes that have cracked our bones and made us permanent friends of workshop workers who fix our cars and change our tires. What is harmful to our health is the condition of our system of education that has been dangling at the same place despite the various plans, programs and experiments of successive ministers. What is antagonistic to the public health is the health services that, instead of curing us, are making us more sick. What is deteriorating our health is the condition of our markets that are full of greedy and avaricious merchants who keep rising prices without anyone to stop them or protect us from their savage greed. Our health is continuously being stabbed by our inability to obtain accommodation despite the long years of vain waiting and the never-ending bureaucratic procedures in government offices. What is harmful to our health is the continuation of the wasta (nepotism), which is openly undermining all the principles of fairness and killing the competition based on qualifications and competence. What is really harmful to our health is that some of our senior officials are virtually killing all the dreams and ambitions of the leadership and murdering the aspirations of the people in cold blood. What is harmful to our health is the continued anxiety of the widening of the domain of the selective tax before raising the prosperity of the citizens or improving their living conditions.
