When I came back two weeks back, I was catching up on the news I have missed. What amused me most was the episode of what a certain government official wrote on his family vacation. To me, I did not think it was that big a deal because he took a break for some family bonding, and he gave his wife and son what they wanted to do. That itself would be a pretty cosy family vacation.
Except I did not expect his article would illicit so many responses. True, the country is facing bad times, true, many people have been retrenched, etc, but the gist of the matter was that he is a government official, thus his salary comes from tax payers, thus everyone is making a big hoo ha that they are using their hard-earned tax money to finance a government official’s family vacation!
People spend at least five thousand per head on family vacations. My family just spent twenty thousand in
The thing is, why do people bother so much what he does in his free time? Is he not entitled to vacation leave? So if he goes on leave, why can he not go on a vacation like everyone else? Why kick up such a big fuss?
Maybe if he is not a government official but a top man in a company, nobody bothers because his salary does not come from the people. It is only when he is using the public’s money that is why everyone bothers. But people have to distinguish that a job is a job. He works as a government official, but he is also a husband and father, and has every right to have his own free time with his family, notwithstanding what he does.
Maybe if he did not disclose the amount spent, people would not be so agitated. Honestly, if he is a top man in a company, his salary will probably be more, so just a mere forty-five thousand is nothing to him. I am not saying the figure is nothing; it is a lot to a lot of people, but for anyone of the same rank and status, that sum is really nothing to them.
I am not trying to be insensitive here. I know forty-five thousand is equivalent to many people’s yearly income. And there are also many who do not even earn forty-five thousand a year. Thus, they have every right to have an uproar over how their money is being spent.
The thing is, if people can afford a lavish vacation, so be it. If you yourself cannot afford, why fault others if they can afford? I also like to have a big car to drive around, stay in a big house of my own, go for exotic holidays a few times a year, indulge in high-class hotels and spas, buy designer goods all the time, take expensive airlines.
But I know myself, and I know my limit. Whatever I want to do, I save up to do it, and if I am not able to do it, I just have to let go. There are so many people around me who can do so many things, own so many more things than me. That does not mean I go around griping and kicking up a big fuss on how come they are spending so much money on this and that. It is their lives and if they have the priviledge, no one can fault them.
Maybe the big issue is that he is spending taxpayer’s hard-earned money, and everyone is now “suffering” for whatever reason. In that case, how come I still see people splurging on shopping sprees, going for high class meals and driving big cars? If people are really as poor as they claim they are, should these all not be cut down?
So we can spend our own money in our own lavish ways, yet fault someone for spending his money in his own lavish way? Is that not a double standard? Just because his lavish way is far too lavish for some? We work for companies who pay us salaries, but our employers never question how we spend their money.
So why must we then turn around and point our fingers at someone who can afford and has every right to a good life? Or is it because being a government official, he has to set an example and scrimp and save and live the most frugal way in order for people to look up and be happy with him? So does that mean being government officials, one cannot live comfortably in times like these?
1 comments:
The issue here is not so much about "taxpayer money" or "Spending lavishly". Govt official can spend what they liked for all we care, and it is okay. But when he goes around to write article about it and publish in the "national newspaper", now that's what is called Bragging.
The analogy is like trying to brag to poor people in third world country that you have money, car and house. What will be the reaction from that after they are provoked by the bragging?
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