Sheikh Ahmad Al-Nawaf … Closing State’s financial taps is devastating for the country

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ONCE upon a time, a guest visited his friend who is known for his stinginess. The friend called his son and said, “We have a dear guest whom I would like to honor. So go to the butcher and bring us half a kilogram of the best meat.”

When the son returned later, he said, “I went to the butcher and told him to give me the best meat in the shop, and the butcher said, “I will give you meat that looks like butter”. I then thought to myself, “If that is the case, why don’t I buy butter instead of meat?!”

So I went to the grocer and told him to give me the best butter he has. The grocer said, “I will give you butter that is like honey. So I thought to myself that if he was giving me butter that is like honey, why not buy honey?

So I went to the honey seller and told him to give me the best honey he has. He said to me that he would give me honey that was like pure water. I then ended up returning without buying anything.”

His father said, “What a clever boy you are! However, you missed the fact that you wore out your shoes by running from one shop to another.”

The boy said, “No, father, I put on the guest’s shoes.”

The moral of this story is that the miser lost the trust of the guest who ended up not eating anything, and whose shoes also ended up being worn out.

There is no doubt that this applies to countries that are stingy in spending on their projects, even though they have wealth that qualifies them to be at the forefront of developed countries. Such miserliness and mismanagement affect the country’s political situation because it is the pillar of stability and prosperity. The more active the development, the lower the rate of chaos and crime.

Prosperity can only prevail through an engine that has competent people, who enjoy honesty and good management, and have the ability to make the right decision at the right time.

There are models in the region and in the world that were based on desire and ambition, but changed their paths, making them the focus of the world’s attention. Among these countries are the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

In the past, Kuwaitis used to make jokes about these countries, especially when the people of those countries used to come to Kuwait to learn from it and to acquire the best modern innovations.

However, when those countries realized their potential and worked to invest sovereign money in the right way, they became a destination for Kuwaitis who lament about what happened to their country, and at the heights those countries have reached. They even found themselves being paper tigers while others became lions of opportunities, strength, grit and will.

The issue is not in the illusions that some officials live with and useless rhetoric, which states that their country is different from other countries. Rather, it is the ability to make the right decision.

Whenever scarcity prevails, the state will lag behind. When canned justification becomes ready, the will turns into a point of view, and the state plunges into chaos.

Sovereign funds existed to serve society. Therefore, investing them at home, through infrastructure projects, revitalizing the industrial sector, providing food security, and opening doors to investors from all over the world, increases the country’s prosperity and stability.

It is like giving citizens fishing rods and teaching them how to fish. This happens when the leadership realizes the importance of building an active economy, and not making people live in poverty for fear of poverty.

When the taps of the state’s funds are closed, and it is dominated by the doctrine of investing its sovereign money abroad because corrupt profiteering is facilitated there, there is no doubt that people’s groaning will rise. There is no escape from hunger and poverty except by a painful surgical operation, but it is the salvation to restore health to the state.

The first step to prosperity lies in changing the mentality, and looking at the many benefits that society and the state are losing due to the lack of know-how and economic sophistication.

What would be the harm, for example, to open up the country, and not be a victim of human traffickers who bring people in exchange for sums of money and then leave them on the streets. The state can benefit from this matter, just as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, the Sultanate of Oman, and some Asian countries did. They opened their doors to everyone. Instead of human traffickers getting rich at its expense, it cut them off by turning it into the sponsor.

There is no doubt that the country will remain underdeveloped as long as the will to develop it does not exist. This will only be achieved by changing the mentality, the method of decision-making, and replacing people who obstruct the path, either for the sake of reconciliation, or for lack of awareness of the importance of combining prosperity and stability, and not encouraging them to increase state injustice.

Your Highness, the country’s sovereign money is borrowed by others for the development of their country while Kuwait lives on deficit.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

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