Saturday, September 19, 2009

Mauritius Rich Enough to Solve Traffic Problem

If we assume for just one second -- though I fully understand that this could be a leap of faith for most of you -- that the Rs25-30 billion rupees Sithanen says we need to fix the traffic problems are correct then we don't need to borrow one cent from abroad because we are rich enough to do it with our own cash.

In fact if government had started to put money to solve this important problem back in 2005 our traffic problems would certainly have been reduced to more reasonable levels. See, the audit report tells us that about Rs5 billion is wasted every year or Rs25 billion over a 5-year period. So that if we had managed to cut a quarter of that waste and add the Rs5 billion gift that Sithanen wasted on the dead sugar industry and the Rs3 billion that were mysteriously lost at the STC that would have provided us with about half the amount he's looking for. Government could then have budgeted an equal amount in its capital budget spread over 5 years. After all, Sithanen did brag about putting Rs14 billion in an opaque and useless stimulus package, right?

Of course as the traffic would have become more fluid we would have saved on petrol consumption and pollution while seriously improving living standards of almost everyone at the same time.

But almost absolutely nothing was done to make this problem any smaller in spite of what a fiery Ramgoolam promised exactly a week before the last time we voted him into power. Berenger is certainly not any better. He promised us that a metro was on its way for five whole years. Talk is cheap. We need new leaders.

11 comments:

Yashvin said...

Any suggestions?
Pravind, Dayal? :P

Ou partie globe?

I don't think Mauritians will give a chance to someone new. Today, we have only 2 leaders who r fighting for the next elections, others are just playing secondary roles.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Am sure they will as they have done on a few times before. The Labour Party didn't always exist, neither did the MMM. And we will get new leaders at these parties sooner rather than later. New parties can and will probably emerge given that there is currently a lot of room for alternative policies.

We can do our bit by voting for candidates on their merit instead of on party lines the next time we go to the polls and having a vigorous debate on the real issues.

Bruno said...

Sorry but the MMM did come with good proposals and measures:

1 LRT (aka metro leger) will help to transport mass of people from Curepipe, Vacoas, QB, RH ... to Port Louis (et vice versa)

2 Regionalisation of secondary schools ... pas ti pou ena sa bordel avec education gratuit mal planifie la si ti maintenir regionalisation dans formule Obeegadoo :P

Yashvin said...

Bruno, the metro leger project has been here since more than 10 years, and nothing concrete yet has been made in both governments.

But will the Mercedes or BMW owner leave his car at home to travel in the metro leger everyday?
Even today, you have loads of vehicles moving towards Port Louis with only 1 passenger.

Bruno said...

@Yashvin
The project was near implementation stage in 2005, but unfortunately there was a change of government, and more unfortunately, AS did not continue to work on this solution :(

Moi mo penser, meilleur facon c met enn congestion tax :D zot tou pou kit zot loto dans garage ... excepter ban sa ki bien riche ek sa ki bien bizin loto sa jour la. The munny collected from this congestion tax used to improve public transport system of course ...

Yashvin said...

If that was what MMM planned :
"Moi mo penser, meilleur facon c met enn congestion tax :D zot tou pou kit zot loto dans garage ... excepter ban sa ki bien riche"

Seki reste riche pu reste riche meme.
How can we call that?
deux poids deux mesures?

Bruno said...

cite moi enn l'economie cot ban pauvre plis dan bien ki ban riches .....

What I am saying is that ... we can force many people out of the roads, but of course those very rich will be able to pay these taxes. However, you should not see that as an injustice: in fact the very rich will be paying for the others to enjoy a better public transport. So it's a win-win situation

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Congestion tax la vine apre ki noune met bon bis e otre system de transport piblik. Pa avant.

Kav taxer den fasson nonlineaire ban dimun ki dessan dan PL tou sel dan zot gro loto oussi.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Wadire nu pu gagn nuvo lider dan omwin enn parti biento.

akagugo said...

Qui? Lui qui évite toute action qui pourrait ressembler de près ou de (très très) loin à un affrontement?

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Who else? The show must go on.