20 September 2017 09:51 am
The new revenue bill introduced by the yahapalanaya government triggered a controversy in the country from the very inception.
The JO in particular found this bill a handy weapon to attack the government with. They charged that the government was trying to transplant into our fiscal system a revenue collecting strategy ‘borrowed’ from another country lock, stock and barrel. The JO assigned to their economics wizkid, the former tuition master, the job of launching a frontal attack on the new bill when taken up for debate in the council.
Determined to tear the bill into smithereens with razor-sharp points, the JO economics wizkid approached a highly qualified economist attached to a university in the outskirts of the city. “Please give me a briefing on all the negative aspects of this bill,” he told the university don.
The university don who had already studied the bill briefed the JO wizkid on the defects, shortcomings and the fundamental flaws in the proposed act which, he said, could lead to serious repercussions if placed on the statute.
Meanwhile, a government high-up, a doctor himself, too called on the same university academic and sought an analysis of the bill highlighting the merits of the bill.
The academic marshalling his best possible analytical skills briefed his politico-friend on the merits of the bill and the far reaching benefits to accrue from it once it was in operation and the contribution it would make towards placing the country’s economy on an even keel.
Fortified with the academic’s analysis, the yahapalanaya high-up left for the council fully confident he could easily quash the arguments to be put forward by the Opposition.
When the debate on the bill came up in the council a few days later, the JO wizkid was up firing all his guns at the bill. When his turn to take the floor came, the yahapalanaya doctor fired salvo after salvo destroying the arguments adduced by the JO wizkid.
However, both protagonists did not know they were using ammunition acquired from the same source!