Author, Stella Riunga Rop.
I would like to report that here just across the border, we are en route to becoming a very healthy and fit nation. I am reflecting on a new tax that is currently being debated by both our honourable and dishonourable members of parliament.
This tax, if effected, will mean that every year, car owners will pay a tax of around 2.5 per cent of the value of their vehicles. Yes, even those who own jalopies that cough black smoke and keep ‘fainting’ on the road.
But back to being healthy and fit—what this tax means is that if owning a car becomes too expensive in the long run, then my fellow citizens will quickly ditch their vehicles and be forced to adopt a healthy lifestyle of walking almost everywhere. Of course, we have public transport vehicles but sometimes, for peace of mind, it is better to avoid them.
I hope employers everywhere will be okay with their employees turning up at midday, just in time to rest, have lunch, respond to a few emails and make some phone calls before psychologically and physically preparing for the long trek back home.
Goodbye, gym subscriptions—the middle class who frequent those gyms will be burning fat on the roads instead.
For those of us who work in open-plan offices—please invest in fans and make sure the windows can open because we will be enveloped in the stench of sweat and hot feet from as early as 9am.
You know what, a walking nation is also a thinking nation because something has to go through your mind as you walk for an hour each day. And a thinking nation is a dangerous nation because all these walking thinkers will start asking themselves why it is they are busy walking while paying for the fuel costs and salaries of those who put such taxes in place. Indeed, we might be walking our way right into a revolution … but you didn’t hear that from me.
