Recall that the Sithanen Toohrooh (ST) is the cumulative difference between the GDP that was supposed to be generated by the 15% flat tax and its actual number. Given that we never grew at the expected 8% rate promised by Dr. TINAnen during the past nineteen years – average growth rates between 2006 and 2024 is 3.4% or less than half the target – except in one year and that too only because the economy had contracted by nearly 15% in 2020 due to Covid it has steadily been increasing since 2006 and together with some of the most catastrophic policy decisions ever have fairly disintegrated our great and beautiful country. So much so that the ST reached Rs6 trillion in 2024 rupees a few weeks before voters produced the third 60-0 of our post-independence history.
Clearly and as the chart confirms most of that GDP gap happened on Pravind Jugnauth's watch (almost 78% of it) with SAJ accounting for 8.5% (Roshi Bhadain was in government during this time) and Navin Ramgoolam 13.5% of the total. For ease of calculation this breakdown assumes that SAJ, PJ and NR took over at the start of 2015, 2017 and 2025 which is not exactly a lot of violence to the facts. To be sure the shape of the chart depends essentially on the tax structure and given that all three PMs since 2006 have stuck with one that was unsustainable and overall very regressive it would not have made a big difference if the order of their stints was altered. It would still have been 20 years of extreme voodoo economics or if you prefer Shaitanomics.
The annual £90m we've apparently been contemplating to receive for the Chagos Islands will not matter that much even with the front-loading because it will be inconsequential compared to the ongoing damage caused by the ruinous tax structure. The current PM who wanted a fourth term so as to leave a legacy – it's atrociously negative after three just like PJ's is after eight years as PM – should have presented a budget at the end of last November or early December with a sustainable tax structure to dramatically slow down the fiscal rot and let Mauritius start being Mauritius again. This would have prevented the ST from increasing by about another Rs500 billion by the end of next month and NR's share of the mess to 20.4%. Add another half a trillion rupees till the close of 2025 if the June 5th budget keeps the same regressive and ruinous tax structure and see Ramgoolam's share of the ST rise to 26.2%. More if the new doses of voodoo economics in ADC's electoral manifesto are implemented.
Of course the Rs6 trillion ST translates into Rs1.2 trillion of revenue missing in the government coffers – which would have meant zero public debt right now plus Rs500 billion growing in a nice sovereign wealth fund if all we could have managed was the preservation of capital – assuming the latter accounts for a conservative 20% of national production and a private sector GDP shortfall of Rs4.8 trillion.
For sure the mile wide support the government received six months ago was only inch deep and that in many fields Mauritius has been in junk territory for many years. If common sense doesn't make a big comeback in a few weeks the risk that the social elastic will snap will keep on increasing from its already and unnecessarily very dangerous level.
