How to save taxpayers’ money

Every day, the poor, long suffering Sri Lankans gorge themselves with pastries, buns, rolls, cakes, all swilled down with sugary tea.

Sri Lanka is the land of good tea. They know sugar and carbohydrates are bad for them – but they are addicted to sugar. Sugar is addictive and, after all, they have to eat something.

Well, arsenic, cyanide and sugar are well known to be poisonous, and should not be consumed by the wise.  I can now ask the question – will good, kindhearted Sri Lankans also quaff tea suitably dosed with cyanide, if it tasted good??

The businesses selling sweet items (60% of all items on the food shelves of supermarkets) plus sugar itself, are doing a roaring trade. And the bakers, tea shops too! And at the other side of the coin, after the hospital experience, so are the medical importers and distributers. The diabetic Sri Lankans are making a ‘money-go -round’ for others. They are the patients who suffer, and the taxpayer must pay the bill.

It is a whole dependency on poor, long suffering Sri Lankans – a whole chain, from the sugar manufacturers, the sugar distributers, the bakers and distribution at the tea shops, to medical importers and suppliers, even the Medical doctors who have prestigious jobs resurrecting the half dead Sri Lankans – back to life, back to their daily routine of drudgery, poor food and supporting the kids.

However, diabetes is known to be reversible if diagnosed in its early stages. It can be reversed by burning off the excess sugar in the blood – by exercise and eating good food. A wide range of food seems to be necessary to help prevent diabetes, too.

However, one junior hospital doctor confided recently to me that up to 70 or even 80 % of beds in hospitals were taken by diabetes or Insulin related sicknesses in patients.

If this is true, it means that perhaps four out of five hospital beds are for people devoted to this craving for consuming sugar and sweet things.  If you directly extrapolate arithmetically, it means that four out of five hospital beds are not needed if all people were to follow a better diet.

Consequently, by deduction, four out of five whole hospitals plus supporting administration are not needed. This money can be saved by sharp advertising on TV at prime time, warning about the dangers of sweet things and carbohydrates.

Taxpayers – give a sigh of relief! I have solved the current tax burden problem!

But my suggestion will be fought against, tooth and nail! The government owns the sugar mills.

The public are being taken for a unpleasant ride, as long as there is no one who can copy the fine example of the cigarette, tobacco industry and advertise on TV. – in this case, the dangers of consuming sugar and other carbohydrates. But nobody moves. Too many interests are at stake. (= Carry on paying as usual, taxpayers!)

Priyantha Hettige