EDITORIAL: MARKING MOTHER EARTH DAY WITH NOBLE PURPOSE
Today, April 22, is commemoration day twice over (for lack of a better term) for Mother Earth and the Environment in general. On April 22, 1970, more than 20 million people poured onto the streets of several US metropolises to demonstrate support for environmental protection.
Thirty-nine years later to the day, the UN established International Mother Earth Day on April 22, 2009. In its Resolution number A/RES/63/278, the UN General Assembly recognized that “the Earth and its ecosystems are our home” – and that “it is necessary to promote harmony with Nature and Planet Earth.”
More specifically, International Mother Earth Day is to commemorate the fact that our Earth and its ecosystems are home to all living creatures, flora and fauna. As such, “it is necessary to promote harmony with Nature and the Earth... fostering shared responsibilities to rebuild our troubled relationship with Nature is a cause that unites people around the world”.
Perhaps we can do no better than cite the landmark Earth Day-related Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which had been ratified by 191 parties as of March 2021.
That Agreement met a key requirement for the entry into force of the historic draft Climate Protection Treaty on climate change mitigation, adaptation and financing adopted by consensus of the 195 nations at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.
Tanzania is just as adversely impacted by the seemingly relentless climate change as are other world countries – what with rising temperatures, unpredictable rains and floods punctuated by dry spells, highly vulnerable agricultural production, rising sea levels – the lot!
We should, therefore, be part and parcel of the world’s millions who commemorate Earth Day-cum-International Mother Earth Day today under the theme ‘Restore our Earth.’
Among other noble objectives, the theme focuses on five global aspects: Canopy (Tree-Planting) Project; Food and Environment; Climate Literacy; the Global Earth Challenge, and the Great Global Clean-Up.
‘PATRIOTISM’ LEVY CALL MISGUIDED
The call in Parliament by Ilala MP Mussa Azzan Zungu that a “patriotism” surcharge of either Sh50 or Sh100 be levied on mobile phone subscribers daily is astonishing, to say the very least. This would amount to placing an additional burden on mobile phone users in Tanzania, whose telecommunications sector is already among the most heavily taxed in Africa.
One does not need to be particularly well versed in taxation to know that tax burdens are almost entirely borne by consumers, with service providers merely being a conduit through which the relevant taxes are channelled into state coffers.
While our lawmakers may not think much of paying Sh100 daily, the same cannot be said of the millions of Tanzanians living hand to mouth, but who also happen to subscribe to mobile phone services due to the fact that they have become virtually indispensable. Being a subscriber does not mean that one is well off.
While the government needs all the money it can collect in tax and other revenues to further its development agenda, significantly increasing the burden on existing taxpayers is not the way to go.
What Tanzania sorely needs is a wider tax base, and the government will hopefully take this into account when it tables its 2021/22 Budget in Parliament.
