Wake up before it’s late
aproverb or a saying attributed to ali bin abi taleb, the cousin and son-in-law of prophet muhammad (pbuh), says: ‘work for this world as if you will live forever and work for the life-after as if you will die tomorrow’. but in this article we will make a slight change to this famous proverb and say, ‘work for your homeland as if oil will remain forever and work more for your homeland as if oil will run out tomorrow’. yes, what will hurt us if we think in terms of our only source of income will last forever or it will disappear or lose its value in the world the next day? what we see today is the waste of money and greater waste of this scarce resource. this is an unacceptable and an irrational behavior, especially given the terrible overspending by several government agencies beyond their budgets which amounts to kd 4 billion. however, this has not embarrassed one senior or junior offi cial of our good government, not even the members of parliament, and the opposition in particular, who, to the contrary have praised the government and turned a blind eye to kd 15 billion of unjustifi ed spending or waste, without a word of protest, by using this issue as a bargaining chip for the reinstatement of withdrawn citizenships. on the other hand, in spite of all this waste, we commend the government’s intention to integrate the youth authority with the ministry of youth affairs, dissolve the quran department and assign its work, which is not yet implemented, to the ministry of awqaf and merge the government manpower restructuring program with the public authority for manpower. (i wish mr ahmad al-mousa is appointed as the head of this body, having proved his sincerity and seriousness in his job). the sources also indicated the government intention to merge public-private partnership projects with the privatization system. we wish the government here does not to forget that the supreme standing advisory committee works to complete the application of the provisions of islamic law, which has never known any achievement, and failed to ignite even a matchstick, for a quarter of a century, forget illuminating a road. oil is losing its ‘glitter’ with each passing day, and we should not be fooled by the rise in price sometimes. as for every rise is followed by a decline and this oscillation depends on specifi c ‘geopolitical’ factors that end with time. the risk of depletion or loss of importance of oil remains is an important concern. these highs must not prevent reforms, if started. a century of oil sovereignty over the fate of billions of people, and its control over the policies and economies of countries is smelling of decay, and the end will come much sooner than later. we need to remember that it took 62 years to reach 50 million car users and 50 years to reach the number of landline telephone users, 46 years to reach 50 million electricity consumers, 28 years to reach 50 million holders of credit cards, and 22 years to reach 50 million tv subscribers, 7 years for internet users, 4 years for youtube and 3 years for facebook, and only two years for twitter. so we see that the evolution and the acceleration of change are above anyone’s imagination. as nokia, kodak, the dot matrix printers, and telex disappeared; many other things will disappear from our lives faster than we can think of.
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