The parliament approved yesterday a 1% increase on the value-added tax (VAT) and other taxes as well in order to fund the long-awaited new wage scale. The scale has not yet been approved and some are warning of a revolution in case it gets approved.

Needless to say, there’s nothing wrong with raising taxes and imposing new taxes as long as people are getting something in return and public money is not being squandered but obviously that’s not the case here. Corruption keeps getting worse every year, the country has been in recession for years, businesses are closing down and struggling and the poor is getting poorer: Hence, you try to cut down on expenses and reduce the salaries of ministers & MPs, raise taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, invest in e-government initiatives etc ..

We can’t possibly support a wage hike bill for public sector workers when many of them barely do any work and take bribes left and right and it doesn’t come as a surprise that the most corrupt parties are the ones staunchly pushing for it. I am preparing another detailed post on the new taxes approved or to be approved that I will share following this week’s updates. Till then:

Will there be protests? Definitely.
Will there be a revolution? I doubt it.
Are we going to vote for the same politicians once again? Most probably*

*Assuming they won’t postpone elections one more time.