THE recent attention being paid to the extortion racket on public worksites should not lull us into believing that their extinction is close at hand. Also, while these extortion costs incur extra expenditure for doing no extra tasks, it will be even more difficult to extract ourselves from them and just as painful as pulling a diseased tooth or toenail.
It must be exasperating to those who would like to see this nefarious practice of extortion confined to an unforunate time in our history, but it has become more widespread over time and has spread beyond public sector works to the transport sector (taxi/buses) and to prime market spots.
I suspect that it will remain as it is politically expedient for such projects to be under the control of political area leaders/liaison officers/security consultants, since it reduces any threat to the M.P./caretaker. With its extensive claim on the public exchequer, extortion can satisfy the short-term needs of those who get the 'spoils'.
FEEDING TREE
By being a 'feeding tree' off the general taxpayer (regardless of the excess cost incurred or poorer quality of work produced), the practice has become tolerated over time and has expanded into all parishes.
Civil society must be under threat by the escalating financial cost of these extortion claims in this time of financial constraint. The Government must stop these extortionists. But you exclude these extortionists at your own peril. Their entreaties for funds and jobs may be expressed explicity (i.e. containing suitable expletives) but the threats can easily become real with injury, death, high losses of expensive equipment and expropriated items.
I do not exaggerate when I say that the power these extortionists derive, from being able to shut down major projects, or extracting portions of workers' salaries (for the privilege of obtaining the job), gives them an exalted sense of importance. This means that you cannot expect any reduction in their entreaties. The role-model examples of those, who have seemingly prospered by using such tactics, encourage others to duplicate it. If some of them expire naturally or by violence, while being engaged in this practice they can still look forward to getting exequies (funeral rites) that will praise them for being exemplar members of the community, excellent communicators, good mobilisers and very likeable individuals, all courtesy of the M.P./caretaker.
