Volume 2: Knocking on Heaven's Door Chapter 57 Leaders Must Have a Spirit of Contract (Part 1)
"It's already the fourth day, Tommy. Are you sure you still don't want to try to understand how the Prime Minister solves the country's problems?" Maduff saw Tommy Hawke sitting on a lounge chair outside the government gate like a lazy man again, enjoying the afternoon sun, and walked over with a smile and asked, "Not every high school student has this opportunity."
"I'm not interested in politics , Prime Minister. It's already a headache for me to keep an eye on these guys and prevent them from causing too much trouble," Tommy said.
This was a conversation that had taken place every day between Prime Minister Maduf and Tommy over the past seven days, but each time Tommy showed no interest in Maduf's invitation.
"Okay, Tommy, then I'll temporarily occupy your Prime Minister's Office to handle some real official business." Maduf exhaled, patted his belly with both hands, turned and walked towards the government building.
The Prime Minister and the Governor are recognized as good guys by the students. They have been playing happily with the students these days without any airs.
Kevin completed his plan for the National Games, Dennis also held a rock music festival, and most of the students recovered from the madness of the first three days and gradually calmed down . There were no more weird and chaotic incidents, and they tried to learn to understand the operation of the country like adults.
"Tommy, you'd better come over here." Chris poked his head in a cowboy hat out of the government building and said seriously.
Tommy walked into the meeting room on the second floor. Chris and several students who were interested in taxation were looking through piles of documents and whispering, "What's going on? Is the casino you're working on with David going to officially open?"
"No." Chris closed the door and handed over a document with dense numbers on it. Tommy glanced at it cluelessly and asked, "What is this?"
Chris pointed to the numbers and said to Tommy, "We originally wanted to study how much tax would be collected if we opened a casino, so we looked up the tax information of this country and found that Burton Sugar was probably evading taxes. Yes, I suspect that Burton Sugar is taking advantage of the fact that people in this country don't understand taxes."
"They only pay the most basic corporate income tax, but there is no record of them paying value-added tax on agricultural products. Moreover, the report they submitted shows that the net profit of the sugar factory is very low. I asked the previous tax minister, and he said that three years ago, Bolton Sugar built a factory here and has been paying according to this figure. The reason for the low profit was that Bolton Sugar explained that it provided them with too many jobs and the expenses were too high . They hired more than 6,000 local people to work in the sugar factory. In fact, I learned that the workers who cut sugarcane or processed on the assembly line did not get the salary they wrote on the report." A student looked up and spoke to Tommy.
Tommy looked at the other person: "How do you know so much?"
"My family has produced three county tax commissioners, Mr. Prime Minister, and I am preparing to become the fourth. I think no one here is more sensitive to tax issues than me at the moment." The student said to Tommy seriously.
"Just a suspicion, no evidence?" Tommy shook the document in his hand and asked.
The student said, "Mr. Prime Minister, if this level of suspicion were in the United States, it would be enough for the tax department to come and investigate and check the records of the sugar factory."
"Ashley said you were here, Tommy." Pam, who was about to be tanned by the Caribbean sun, walked in from outside: "The sewage from the Burton Sugar Company even poisoned wild boars..."
"Poor bastard, I'm going to lead the armed forces to blow up the Bolton Sugar factory!" Before Pam could finish her words, Catherine stormed in from outside: "Tell me! Where can I get the explosives!"
Tommy Hawke looked at Pam and Catherine and said, "Your Majesty, calm down and explain what happened first. Why are you all targeting Burton Sugar?"
"You know, I have four capable and beautiful servants, no, subordinates. I carefully selected them. I have never been interested in getting to know them before, but today, my favorite black girl among them did not come to accompany me because her mother was sick and she had to go to the sugar factory to replace her mother. Guess what I found out next. Almost all local workers in Bolton Sugar owed money to the factory. Their salaries were not enough to support their families. The damn sugar factory launched a loan service to lend money to workers so that they could meet their basic living needs and not starve to death... Soon..." Catherine was a little excited:
"Soon... all the workers were in debt. The salary they earned after working hard for a month was not enough to pay the interest they owed, so they had to keep borrowing money from the factory. The factory told them that if they worked hard, they would not ask for the money owed and would continue to lend them money to support their lives. But if they quit... they would have to return all the money including the interest. They turned the workers into slaves who owed money for generations and could never pay it back! It was even more brutal than the British colonial rule!"
"Hi, everyone. I can hear your voices in the next office." Zoe pushed open the door, threw a contract on the table in the conference room, and spoke softly:
"Look what David and I found. This is a contract. In order to allow Saint Vincent to become an independent country and join the Inter-American Cooperation Organization founded by the United States, the United States promised to provide 20 million US dollars in support to this country. The condition was that American sugar factories would come here to invest and build factories, monopolizing the only profitable industry in this country, the sugar industry. The word "monopoly" may be too direct. It says exclusive cooperation rights. Within half a year after the contract was signed, Bolton Sugar came here to open a sugar factory. But the 20 million US dollars in aid mentioned by the United States has not been fulfilled even after nearly three years."
David Schaeffer also walked in and looked at the people in the room with a blank expression: "The United States promised that after St. Vincent became independent, it would provide financial support to this country to develop medical and educational systems to ensure that the country could get on the right track after independence. But the result is that this country lost the colonial assistance previously provided by Britain, and the Americans did not give this country any benefits. They almost blatantly robbed the country's most valuable sugar industry and did not give St. Vincent a penny. This poor country was played around by the United States, but it was powerless to do anything."
"This is the real reason why everyone in this country wants to please us. They hope that after having enough fun, we can discover the heavy things hidden under the mask of joy in this country and help them." Zoe said.
Tommy Hawke let out a depressed sigh: "I finally understand why Prime Minister Maduf refused to share the profits. This is much more complicated than sharing the profits. They know that although they are the head of state, in the eyes of the United States, their status is not even as good as a group of high school students. This is the real reason why people in this country play crazy with us. They regard us as real student leaders, but in fact, if we return to our country, we have no right to say a word to Washington."
"Tommy, even if we are not qualified to go to Washington, we have to do something." Chris said as Tommy walked out the door.
"I know, but I have to ask the former Prime Minister first if this is what he would like to see." Tommy opened the two doors of the conference room and saw the country's real Prime Minister and Governor, two elderly men standing alone at the end of the corridor, looking at Tommy and the American high school students behind him with complicated eyes. It was obvious that the sound insulation of the conference room was not very good.
"Sorry, children, we are so sorry..." Prime Minister Maduf lowered his head in shame, but then raised it again: "This is the sadness of a small country. No one is willing to listen to our voices."
Tommy Hawke lit a cigarette and turned to look at the high school students in the meeting room who were looking at him. "He called us kids, but I want to say that we are more than kids. Let them see what it means to be a youth student leader in the United States. Our term of office will end in three days. In three days, we will teach America what it means for a fucking leader to have a spirit of contract!"
