From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2013
Today’s first reading is taken from Wis 11:22-12:2. It talks of the universe which is like a grain of dust compared with God who created it. God loves all the things which he has created. It is he who preserves all creation, he who forgives the sins- his spirit is in every creature.
In Genesis creation accounts God saw everything that he had made was good and he loved them. He took a survey of them, looked over them again, as workmen do when they have finished their work, to see if anything is amiss or wanting.
The challenge here is, do you really love your work or complain? Do you take your work as the service to the people or merely for salaries? Do you complain when work is much and sometime you are forced to do overtime without added wage? Do you do your work justly or steal from it, through corruption or other means?
Doing work with love and loving your work means you must do it justly. In the Gospel taken from Lk 19:1-10 we are seeing at first Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man was not just in his worked. His work was full of corruption and did it merely to get money from taxpayers unjustly.
Later on he realizes that it was wrong to exploit and rob people of their money, he then seeks to see who Jesus was. When Jesus looked at him and told him that today I must stay at your house he replied: “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.”
And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” The grace of God was working within Zacchaeus that is why he was not only able to seek forgiveness from Jesus but also pay back the money he had stolen from people.
Salvation came to Zacchaeus because he was able to pay back those he had wronged. That is how salvation came to Zacchaeus because by turning from his tax collecting, he turned from Rome and was reconciled back to the Jewish community.
As a chief tax collector for the vicinity of Jericho, Zacchaeus was an employee of the Roman Empire. Under the Roman system, men bid on those positions, pledging to raise a certain amount of money. Anything they raised over that amount was their personal profit.
The fact that Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, so he must have extorted a great deal from the people and encouraged his subordinates to do so as well. The crowd, however, muttered that Jesus would be socializing with a sinner. Jews hated tax collectors because they were dishonest tools of the oppressive Roman government.
Zacchaeus collected taxes for the Romans, overseeing the customs charges on the trade routes through Jericho and levying taxes on individual citizens in that area. Zacchaeus must have been efficient, organized, and aggressive in his work.
Even today revenue administration is often ranked as one of the poorest performing public sectors globally in terms of corruption. This is because tax administration is an attractive and tempting sector.
In Kenya for example, the Government is experiencing critical shortage of revenue due to challenges in tax collection. Nothing illustrates this better than the fact that over Sh50 billion owed to suppliers between 20008/09 has not been paid to date.
Within 18 months alone, the taxman had sacked 162 employees over corruption.
More than half of the sacked workers were customs officers stationed at border posts, airports and Mombasa port.
Yet to date, corruption in KRA and Immigration still tops the list above other departments. This hindered KRA from meeting its targets during the 2008/09 financial year when it projected to raise Sh493 billion from taxes but fell short of the target by Sh12 billion.
It fell short of its Sh128 billion revenue target for July September by Sh4 billion.
If this trend continues, Treasury could find it hard financing its expanded budget and this might harm recurrent and development expenditures and other public sectors like hospitals, roads, schools among others.
This trend put the Government in a tighter corner to finance that year’s Sh860 billion budget — the largest budget ever in Kenya. Since then Kenya has not recovered from this, yet corruption continues. Last week the Government was forced to sack 16 immigration officials due to corruption.
Roads Transport department failed to turn in its Sh1 billion target and instead collected Sh600 million in taxes despite an increase in car imports and motor vehicles registered in Kenya in the past 12 months.
Unless Kenyan tax collectors meet Jesus to tell him we are really very sorry like Zacchaeus, give back part of the money they have stolen to the people, high cost of living is expected to affect middle class Kenyans.
The second reading is taken from 2 Thes 1:11-2:2. Paul encouraged the Thessalonians to persevere in their Christian faith and give glory to God. Paul tells them not to consider that the end of the world and the second coming of Christ in glory to judge the world is near at hand.
This idea had in some way become fairly widespread among the converts and some of them just sat idly waiting for Christ’s coming, refusing to do any work. Such behavior was condemned by Paul who told the offenders to work and earn their daily bread.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Twitter-@8000accomole
Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
UN Disarmament
Conference, 2002