by Patrick Hoyos

HAVE YOU NOTICED how popular green has become in newspaper ads? It's the new "in" colour, as advertisers try to ramp up sales by suggesting how "green" (that is, environmentally friendly) they or their products are. Some take the corporate approach, advising customers to turn off lights, keep the fridge closed, use less gasolene or diesel, the usual.

As far as I am concerned, until they come up with a real plan, they should save their energy telling me how to save one per cent of mine.

All this lip service to the energy crisis facing us makes me realise we are still burying our heads in the sand. Where is the holistic approach? Where is the plan for garbage recycling in a major way, including separation of waste, for either homes or businesses or both? Where are the incentives for recyclers to purchase equipment and turn on the technology that makes resalable energy
out of waste products?

Apart from a few far-sighted entrepreneurs, there is no leadership on this in the country, and certainly not by the Government, which has had almost six months to study the problem and whose leader openly admits the energy crisis is indeed that – a crisis.

The same leader who, by the way, dons a racing helmet and goes for a spin in a rally car around the Vaucluse Track, two days later announces reductions in diesel for selected parts of the community due to said crisis.

My only beef was that the photo was not published the very next day, the Sunday, or at least the Monday, which would have placed the Press conference held at Ilaro Court with probably every member of Cabinet present in a greener perspective. And then the Dems complain about front-page coverage in THE NATION.

Our national fascination with motor sport has certainly led to "wannabe" drivers acting out their dreams off the raceway in the fastest, most excitingly modified passenger cars imaginable, and Government is encouraging them by jumping in and going for a spin. Where is the responsibility?

The last administration allowed a stretch of Highway 2A to be turned into a pretend Formula 1 racetrack for a few hours last year, with thousands turning up to watch a beauty of a race car attempt to break the sound barrier.

Nothing wrong with motor sport, except the spillover effects noted above. But we don't want to rein in our gas-guzzling lifestyle until economic circumstances start to force the issue, as they are.

May I ask: If "everybody else besides those who were supposed to benefit" enjoyed cheap diesel, according to the Government's argument for raising the price to almost that of unleaded gasolene before re-lowering it for selected groups at selected pumps, isn't the case the same in respect of the lower duties charged on commercial diesel-powered vehicles?

So why not remove those concessions, since you can't abuse the diesel fuel unless you have a vehicle to put it into, and then similarly allow the lower duties to the same select group of registered farmers, minibus drivers and so forth?

I can hear the howls of the truck dealers even as I write this. Tell me why it should not be so, hopefully using a logical argument. Your need to make budget is not a logical argument in this context.

No one should beg for help

It also pains me to read those articles in the newspapers highlighting some medical problem facing a citizen or resident of this island. Often the problems do have surgical solutions, but there are financial hurdles involved which seem insurmountable, leading the affected person – more often a parent – to come forward and lay bare personal medical history which would normally remain private in the desperate hope of getting help from somewhere.

I always shake my head in disbelief, thinking that for all the distance we have travelled on the road of Independence – in the process building an economy said to have a GDP of more than $7 billion per year, not to mention a National Insurance Scheme (NIS) fund that is believed to be in surplus (I say "believed" because apparently no audited accounts have been made available for the past several years) – the people without private insurance who are afflicted with these tough medical circumstances cannot have the state pay all of their bills.

I can hear you crying that this is supposed to be a column on business, and you know, maybe you should not be supporting state intervention on matters best left to the insurance industry . . . . Well, nobody has yet told me (successfully) how to think, so I guess it's all over for me. Seriously, would it be so hard for there to be a fund set up by Government, perhaps through the NIS, like a medical revolving fund (except you don't repay) to pay for these extreme cases?

Of course, what we really need is free health care for all beyond what is available now (to include what insurers call "major medical"), but I understand that would take a lot more financial planning. I fully expect the new administration to come up with such a plan in the next few years, certainly in its first term (just in case).

In the cases I am talking about here, usually the story states that the surgery is indeed being taken care of through the Ministry of Health, but the hold-up is the other costs for travel, accommodation, food and so on that the family will have to pay, and of course the family in question doesn't have the money and therefore out goes the appeal to the public.

Come on, people, just put about $25 million of the NIS surplus into a special fund and use the interest earned for those ancillary costs. If there are an unusual number of such emergencies in any one year and some of the capital has to be used, then it could be
topped up the next year.

Why not have medical success stories appearing in the paper instead of medical hardship, with parents crying over children who need available operations but must continue to suffer until enough fish cakes and bakes have been sold by the community to pay for the other-than-surgery costs? We are a successful country and we should not put our citizens through this.