Witchdoctors Should Pay Heavy Taxes
- Category: The Comrade
- Date 30-11-2008
- 317 views
An elderly medicine man lamented, “The police demanded two million T-shillings but I gave only one million.” In Kahama, some traditional healers said police had squeezed a whopping thirty million from them. Another at Mwakata said the police had milked him of eight million, whereas others in Ushetu paid six million, and eight million was grabbed from Bulige. (see: “Albino killings become police money machine,” The Guardian Monday 22nd November 2008).
The Comrade is not shocked or sympathetic at all. Another name for a policeman is ‘a cop’ which, in English, means ‘to take’, ‘to steal or rob’ – and the police in Shinyanga region have done just that. Besides, you and I believe that Tanzanian albinos are being brutalised because witchdoctors exist and demand their body parts. In so doing, the heartless witchdoctors are amassing stinking wealth by coarse means; yet the government has failed to punish them or target them for taxation.
If you raided a police station in this nation, and demanded a bribe to the tune of one million T-shillings, they might not ably combine their cash to save themselves from danger. You could shoot them all dead because they are poor. However, the witchdoctors have been throwing millions of shillings at the investigators with such ease; you would think they control large manufacturing or mining plants. They are complaining not because they might become bankrupt but any loss hurts. You too would grumble if someone tore a button from your casual shirt.
With rising unemployment and government failing to pay for the university students’ upkeep, it will be possible, even necessary, for college graduates to set up shrines if it remains lucrative. The Comrade cannot raise a million shillings to give a bribe without applying for a bank-loan. A medical doctor might mortgage his house, car or other property to be able to buy a policeman’s mercy. For all our professional dexterity but nominal incomes, TRA taxes us – left, right, and centre - while ignoring the diviners who earn not merely by deception but through promoting murder and mutilation of other humans, particularly the albinos. We spend most of our time doing constructive work and for that, we are forced to pay taxes through our noses.
Traditional healers spend all their time fleecing the gullible public; earning millions of untaxed shillings but government never seems to care. They reap where they have not sown, so let the police stalk them! If I were a cop, I would not hesitate to extort a little change from the weird folks. Moreover, police are not strangers to corruption traditions. They allow drivers of vehicles in dangerous mechanical conditions to use roads as long as some ‘kitu-kidog’ is paid. And perhaps some other cases! Why then is Shaibu Ibrahim (Shinyanga RPC) shocked as though he has never heard that police officers can take bribes?
Let us congratulate the police for showing the true ‘bongo’ spirit, and raising the corruption trophy higher. Someone has gobbled our money to install a fake security radar but business continued as usual; another engineered the Richmond scandal but the world did not end. When the big shots fiddle with hard-earned money generated by taxing genuine productive citizens, the police are watching and can easily follow the example.
Once upon a time, a thief snatched a hen, in a village resident’s plantation, and choked it to death. He hid the body in the nearby shrub and walked about to be sure that nobody saw what he was doing. Confident that no one was watching, he returned to the shrub to collect the chicken carcass, only to discover the village cat had seen and eaten it all, leaving only the head for him to carry home. Shouting hard, he chased the cat into the chicken owner’s compound who praised the cat for its wise act. The police too should not only be praised for grabbing the swindlers’ monies; TRA also should now know where to go for bigger taxes.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: The Comrade, The Guardian on Sunday