So, there has been some economic drama this week. At the suggestion of a Member of Parliament, mobile transaction fees have been increased immensely. I am talking about the Roman Emperor Nero levels of tax as he tried to rebuild a city that had been burned down. This is confusing because we are not Rome, and nothing has burned down to levels that would warrant such aggression.
And it is aggression. Oh, I know that we are a poor country. Sometimes it feels like we do not act on this. Every time the vulnerable private sector starts to do well -- and consistently well too rather in a boom and bust cycle -- something happens. The mineral sector has had spectacular ups and downs. It was particularly harsh, visible, and damaging to the cashew farmers, whom I thought had been effectively bullied just in 2018, but this is not the case at all. It has happened several times in several sectors. Now, this new all-encompassing tax has everyone in high dudgeon.
