National Defence Fund

The communiqué sent by the Ministry of Defence to all heads of department asking that a week’s pay of all employees be donated to the National Defence Fund has met with stiff resistance from trade unions and workers, according to our main news item yesterday.

Contribution of a week’s pay, we are told, is a move by the government to mobilise the people in the war effort. This is in sharp contrast to the plan it initially had to involve the people in the war effort. A seven member cabinet sub committee, one would recall, recommended the introduction of compulsory military service about two years ago.

This recommendation never saw light of the day mainly due to opposition from the minority allies in the coalition who always frown upon attempts to bolster military strength of the state for the reasons known only to themselves.

This time what has been proposed by way of overcoming at least the financial difficulties the escalating cost of war has brought upon the government has stirred a hornet’s nest and is likely to be torpedoed by trade unions.

As a result the government can neither opt for compulsory military service nor settle for the seemingly less difficult method of extracting more funds to finance the war against terrorism. That’s the government is trapped in a situation where it does not have at its disposal an adequate number of personnel and sufficient funds for the efficient prosecution of the war.

Needless to reiterate that the future of the country depends to a great extent on the ability of the state to defeat terrorism. Duty of every citizen who cares for the territorial integrity of the state is to help the on-going war to be fought to a finish. For this to happen the government’s war chest has to be replenished.

To oppose a move which is part of a strategy aimed at achieving this goal may therefore appear to be an unpatriotic act in the eyes of those in the government ranks inebriated with patriotism.

But to brand those who are opposing the Defence Ministry communiqu as unpatriotic or anti government will be far from the truth. They have been contributing the NDF over the past so many years in a number of ways. Burdened by the ever increasing cost of living which has been attributed to the increasing cost war, they have only taken up the position that they no longer can afford any more cuts from their salaries.

The GST is taking a sizable bite of earnings of the salaried class while the affluent continue to fatten on tax defaulting, concessions of all sorts and the various means of income.

The politicians on the other hand who ask the electors to tighten the belts and contribute more to the war effort also continue to enjoy a plethora of perks and help themselves to a surfeit of allowances in addition to big salaries. Moving about in duty free luxury vehicles and living in palatial houses they, one might argue, have no moral right to urge the masses to shoulder the burden of financing the war all by themselves.

Politicians disport themselves in globe trotting even on innocuous missions that have very little to with the development of the country save boosting their ego. All this is being done at a tremendous cost to the country’s economy that has been pared to the bone. Has the on-gong war meant anything to these politicians?

And won’t a poor government or private sector employee be justified in asking, “why only me?” when it comes to making contributions to the NDF.

Charity, they say, begin at home. But in this country politicians and the well-to-do whose interests are the most threatened by the prevalence of terrorism are carrying on regardless as if they want that to begin at some one else’s home – always at the fixed income earner’s.

It not impugnable that the on-gong war has to be financed and terrorism defeated. It is a prerequisite for national development.

But it is not fair to require only the salaried class to bear the burden all the time. The affluent including politicians must also be made to put shoulder to the wheel.

Then only the government will be in a position to ask more from the fixed income earners.