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MINISTERS HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS

Apr 24, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The monies that are used to pay public officials, excepting those that work in public corporations, come from the Consolidated Fund. The bulk of the monies in the Consolidated Fund are raised via taxes.
These taxes in turn are paid by both public and private corporations, private businesses and workers – both employees and the self-employed. Taxes are also earned on imported goods.
I do not know which of these taxes pays government ministers, but it has become commonplace and quite misplaced for persons to feel that because they pay taxes that they are effectively paying the salaries of ministers. This is a false assumption that needs to be debunked, because it leads to all manner of expectations that have no moral or legal basis.
Individuals are not taxed to pay ministers. Individuals are taxed and they pay taxes as part of their contribution to society. If you live in a house, you are normally expected to contribute to the well-being of the house. The fact that you do this does not mean that you are paying the salaries of those who may work in the house. You are merely contributing to the house and it is the management of the household, whoever that may be, who is responsible for paying the staff.
When someone pays taxes, they are not paying the salaries of any minister. They are paying their dues to society. That minister is employed by the State and it is the State or government of that State that is the minister’s employer. The average citizen, by paying his or her taxes, does not derive a right to claim that the minister is being paid by that particular taxpayer. That is a myth that needs to be debunked.
We therefore must be careful about this nonsense that we often hear about your taxes and my taxes paying the officials of the State. The salaries of those persons are paid by the State from the many forms of collections that citizens are lawfully obligated to make. The very basis of their membership of a society demands that citizens make a contribution to the State. That contribution is for services provided. Citizens receive something in return for the taxes they pay. If they receive something in return, then the monies that they pay can be seen as consideration for what they receive. It therefore cannot at the same time be deemed that these same monies are to pay the salaries of ministers, can it?
Everyone has their role to play in society. The citizens have their roles and the ministers have their roles. Ministers cannot be answerable to very Tom, Dick and Harry. That would create chaos in any society.
Every Tom, Dick and Harry cannot go up to a minister and demand to know why that minister is not at work. The minister is not directly accountable to every Tom, Dick and Harry, and is therefore not obligated to provide an answer, more so when the question is asked in a manner that the minister may construe as being not respectful or as interrupting him during a discussion the minister is having with another person.
The minister is free to ignore someone who is interrupting him or to point out that the person is being a nuisance. The minister does not have to give an answer. But if that minister does, then the minister has to live with the consequences of the answer given.
You are free to protest if you live in a society that respects the freedoms of citizens. But just as you are free to protest, so too do others have a right to protest.  Your right to protest is however not absolute. It does not give you the right to interfere with the right of another to protest. Both you and the other have a right to protest.
But not because you pay taxes means that you have to ask a minister why the minister is protesting. You can ask, but there is no legal right to ask and definitely no legal obligation to reply.

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