A quick cure
To those who believe that governments can not be responsive to citizen’s complaints, an interesting sequence of events transpired over the last week.
On Wednesday, Jamil Nimri wrote an article complaining about how the deregulation of pain killers has led to dramatic price increases. These increases were driven by monopolistic abuse by drug importers (such as the former health minister) and manufacturers. Whereas deregulation should have led to competition, better quality and lower prices, it appears that they tacitly conspired to raise the prices, with no protection being afforded to the consumer.
The next day, Emad Hajjaj published this cartoon.
The title is “The gas crisis and the rise in the price of pain killers”, where Abu Mahjoob is telling his friend, Abu Mohammad, that “after they gave us a headache with the gas, they raised the price of Panadol (a popular pain killer)”.
Today the government issued a decision fixing the prices of paracetamol based pain killers at the level that existed before the deregulation.
Now that was FAST!
posted by Khalaf @ 6:51 PM
5 comments
Since October 16, 2005
5 Comments:
Not only was it fast ... but also positive and great :)
Good post Khalaf and nice caricature as usual
Hi Khalidah. Thanks for the nice words.
Other good news is that the PM has pledged not to impose fuel taxes unless the world prices go up and after the parliament approves such a tax.
The last thing a goverment is to mess with its population's drug habits! hehe :)
I did not catch the name of the analyst on Jordanian TV news (midnight 14th of January) last night commenting on Rice’s visit to the occupied territories. However, I was able to catch the end of his statement when he said with a seriously grim face “ This visit is not expected to yield anything meaningful, rather it fits the old Arabian famous saying TE TE METHEL MA ROHTY MA EJEETY”.
I am afraid this very saying applies to the status of Mr Average Jordanian. He is burdened by all this day-to-day existence (not life) in a cold winter of ramadan, two eids and schools and university fees. The government after raising everything to unprecedented levels, they try to release some steam by pretending to have another fuel raise and medicine raise and then back up to make us feel and practice our pity victory. Having said that, if it was not opposed the raise will stay and more money will be banked in the government to MEND OUR HOSPITALS, ROADS AND GREEN PARKS.
and Ya mahla Ebnood EL Revanine
Tallouza: Good to see you.
Anon 1: Yes, stay away from our opiates!
Anon 2: If the whole thing is a play, it is quite elaborate, don't you think? It is an interesting idea, but previous handling of PR by this government has been less than convincing, an I doubt that they have enough control on the press and the parlaiment to actually choreograph such a thing.
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