http://www.arabnews.com/?page=13§ion=0&article=108891&d=15&m=4&y=2008&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Local%20Press
The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily
Sunday 13 April 2008 (06 Rabi` al-Thani 1429)
Selfishness Curse of Our Time
Muhammad Al-Ohaideb . Al-Riyadh -
Selfishness is the only quality of some government officials,
traders, doctors, school authorities and other people serving the public. So
long as they cannot be cleansed of their selfish mentality and convinced that
their goal should be the welfare of the public, the government should take
strong measures to stop them exploiting the people. The implementation of
anything that affects the public welfare should not be left to officials or
others whose sole priority is to protect their own personal interests.
Selfishness is, seemingly, the hallmark of the present age.
Avarice and greed can be seen in every walk of life. For instance, let us take
the case of the Kingdom's stock markets. The market is plagued by clever
manipulators who pass off worthless stocks as blue-chip ones. They manage to do
it by circulating false hints to unsuspecting buyers that the shares will be
highly profitable. On the other hand, the stock market sharks buy good shares
cheaply after circulating other lies. They do not have any pity for the people
whom they make penniless.
Let us also take the case of private hospitals in the
Kingdom. Human feeling has no place in a private hospital these days. The
doctors should at least have some basic humanitarian qualities. On the
contrary, they refuse to attend to emergency cases if the patients do not have
the money to make advance payment. This is, in fact, a clear violation of
hospital regulations, which stipulate that no emergency case should be
rejected. The hospital owners' only concern is to get richer and richer, even
if accident victims or other critical patients die at the front gate of the
building. The hospital owners should be reminded that their hospitals were
built and are being operated with generous government help.
The state of market prices in the Kingdom is worse. A
noticeable lack of earnestness on the part of officials gives the traders full
freedom to increase the prices in an arbitrary manner. It is true that some
commodities are imported at a higher price than before and consequently should
be priced a little higher. But the traders have no justification to increase
the price of every single item in the market. Besides, the increase in the
prices is not commensurate with the increase in the import prices. Some
traders, ironically, demand higher prices for their goods even after receiving
huge sums as government subsidy.
Even the education sector is not free from the greed for
money. Private schools pay very poor salaries to Saudi teachers in an apparent
attempt to exploit them while the school authorities demand from students
tuition fees which are unaffordable to ordinary citizens.
The greed and avarice has been so widespread that the common
man is now cynical of anything they hear or see. Recently, I heard a joke
reflecting their cynical outlook. According to a weather forecast, Riyadh
region should have experienced snowfalls last winter. However, when the winter
passed without any snowfall, a man commented that the forecast must have been
made by some official who had some fuel to sell. So the rampant selfishness is
the curse of our time. The only thing we can do is to keep such people away
from key positions that are supposed to be about service.
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