To drive growth, we cannot afford ‘to sock the rich’

By Charles Kanjama
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Sometime in the 19th Century, somewhere in Europe, a busy town was separated from a poorer residential quarter by a river crossed by a footbridge built by the town authorities. Any person crossing the footbridge had to pay some money, say ten shillings, to cross one way or the other. Then a benevolent town council decided to ease the situation of the poor labourers by abolishing the bridge levy. After several months, it was noticed that the rents in the poorer quarter had generally increased by about five hundred shillings, thus absorbing the labourers’ monthly savings gained from the abolition of the bridge levy.