That was the question put to me by someone 5 minutes ago. And he was surprised when I immediately answered in the affirmative.
Well, sort of. I thought Rama was going to resign with a minimum of class when he heard about L'Alliance de L'Avenir and acknowledge the harm that he's done to Mauritius with his ultra-toxic policies. That would have definitely given me an opportunity to salute a somewhat honourable exit.
But no, he instead preferred to take the whole nation on a guilt trip and second guess the Prime Minister's prerogatives one more time on Sunday.
And this robbed me of a darn good opportunity to say something positive.
23 comments:
li alle donne casse secteur prive dans zot pas ti meme encore dimande.
if rama wasn't there .. the country would have gone right into the crisis .. no1 can doubt that .
And taking lil dad's son on the journey instead of the poor guy who has been climbing the branches one by one !! That's a little too harsh. The another question you could have asked yourself .. is the one who is going to be the minster of finance instead of rama as capable as him and would he have done as well or better than rama the last 5 years ? the question is NO ! ..
I can bet that if rama do not go for the elections.. the ptr will lose more than the 4% it is getting from the alliance with msm !
What kind of crisis are you saying we avoided? One like the US or some countries in the West experienced?
We couldn't possibly have had one like that because we don't have any subprime mortgages or other complex derivatives that brought the Lehman Bros of this world down in our financial sector. I talked about this almost right after the ASP was announced
Rama's skill have been seriously oversold. A Rs5 coin would have done much better.
The robust growth never arrived Ashfaq although that was the premise on which the tax structure was flattened. Any idea why he's been announcing multi-billion rupees funds and never spending them?
And although he initially bragged about the stimulus package being much bigger (3.8% of GDP)than some of the other countries that were genuinely affected by the subprime meltdown he announced at the Doing Business Conference that it didn't cost us that much. And we have still to find out on which criteria our money was doled out to many of these companies.
If things were so great why didn't Ramgoolam go alone and present Sithanen as FM?
He probably has his reasons for not going alone .. since no parties won alone since the coalition of his father and mohammed made a coalition ..i wont go back on the historics..
but sithanen is the kind of guy who knows what he is talking about, not a guy who needs mom and dad to push him forward .. honestly, do you think hilary clinton would have acknowledged the extraordinary performance of mauritius if it was not the case? Yes, Mauritius do not have sub primes and all that .. but the tourism sector was affected .. the sales of products to other countries were affected.. it is true the population was also affected .. since the last 5 years have been a bit "serre lerein" but the reforms were done.. Many stuffs that the welfare state was paying to the mauritians without even saying it came to light.. and that's where you come to realize how much load the state has been carrying. And now, the mauritians know that they do not owe anything to anyone. Since, we want our rights, we got to pay. We paid and now we want our rights back. The arrogance of the public sector people working as if we owe them something is gone. We are paying now. and they better do their jobs and do it well. That's why most mauritians are thankful to rama. Now, we know where we stand and we are happy that we are standing on our feet .. where in other countries, despite paying huge taxes up to 30-40% in uk ! we are safe ! there's atleast 50 -100 jobs advertised everyday in the dailies .. so thanks rama for that.. the guy who made a false duty free island wouldn't have done better and that's final !
The guy know what he's talking about? Lol. Gimme a break. Hillary's statements? Hahaha. Never heard about diplomatic language my friend?
Besides do you know on which promiseBill Clinton got elected in 1992?
Population here affected big time. In the UK they have an inflation target of 2%. Here the bean-counting duet have delivered 33% cumulative inflation.
Public sector doesn't have monopoly of arrogance. What about the beneficiaries of the stimulus package which appear to be infected with hubris?
Unemployment has stayed in the double digits for the past 5 years.
"diplomatic language" ! lolz.. what do the US care about us ?? they already using the diego and do not care at all about mauritius. The comment on the performance of mauritius was legit..
Unemployment ? the recurrent question.. unemployment of who? Who are taken into consideration? The housewife, the women who stopped working, the young adults waiting to go to university, the above 25 without jobs? This is vaste, they do not have a real value for unemployment. When you do not have a job ! no1 knows about it, that's why they cannot have reliable figures.
How many women say that would like to have a job .. are they counted as unemployed ?
The beneficiaries of the stimulus package were the friends of the pm .. I am not a fan of ptr. Nevertheless, rama did a very good job and i acknowledge that. Not to forget the episode of infinity BPO! mauritius didn't need stimulus package.. but still it was given to safeguard jobs..and such that some companies do not "START" the crisis in mauritius..Because as any crisis, the trigger is the most important part. That's what the stimulus package was for. To annihilate any probabilities of triggers.
:) cheerz..
Mr Ashfaq epitomizes(through his opinions) the sort of bland arguments sithanen et al have been proposing. It is important to look at the nature of the crisis and see if the measures taken were disproportionate or not.
I happen to work for one of the textile plants that benfitted from the plan. We all know there that the directors took huge advatge of the package, it wasnt needed - we laughted when he heard that the s.p saved all the jobs there. I sit nest to the Chief Account and I know what I'm talking about!!
So unemployment dynamics change as soon as Sithanen is FM? Lolz! That's a good one!
So he destroyed the triggers. Come one get a little bit serious. A majority of our fellow citizens have been in a crisis since 2006. Savings are at a 30-year low. And how much FDI do we need for people to be doing well? We already received Rs40 billion of them.
Rama is doing as good a job as Cuttaree did as Foreign Minister under Federation 2 when he transformed his ministerial responsibilities into a job search.
@anonymous - would you have been happier if the company took the crisis as a cheap reason for delocalising to another country? like it has been the case in many countries, namely australia, france, germany, belgium, italy .. and i could cite more ..
Come on Ashfaq, get a little bit serious.
Unemployment dynamics ! I am simply talking about how the unemployment rate is calculated.. not the dynamics which would be the driving factors!
I am very serious about the "trigger" factor. What does the people in New York do when there the NY Stock Exchange drops..they make announcements .. about this and that .. and the trend changes..that's what was needed in Mauritius at the time. That the FM play his role, that of a leader of the financial sector. And a leader's role not to do the job but to tell open the way for others to follow and to create the environment for them to perform. That's what he did.
@anonymous - Senegal and other west coast african countries, who have cheaper labour than mauritius would have been a much better option for the US who import our textile. Do not think that we are going to have a preferential agreement forever. The crisis could well have changed the perspective of the US on that and opted for poorer countries to buy textiles from. The US sometimes are very good at heart and their people would be even happier to buy shirts from poorer countries knowing that they are helping those countries.
as ramgoolan said :"personne pa doit nou narier"
keep that in mind. The disproportionnated stimulus packages were there to save your job dear friend.
@sanjay - as you pointed out in your article "get a little bit serious" .. the stimulus package was not enough, which is why they made an additional stimulus package which made it disproportionnate and as I pointed it, it is to refrain from the companies from moving out of mauritius.
@anonymous - your job is very at risk dear friend. The day the people who are friend with you employer is no more in power, and that your company do not get enough priviledges. They are moving out and they are not taking you in their luggages.
How unemployment is calculated? Take a look at this.
Leader? The trigger of the massive poverty created over the past 5 years have got names: Ali and Rama.
The SP was one of the many many intellectually dishonest constructions that Sithanen sent our way.
Since when do we throw good money after bad management?
What about the Rs5 billion he gifted to a sunset industry? Any idea what that does to our competitiveness?
@sanjay - I am sorry to say that .. but you showed me only figures which I already seen!
My question was the following:
"unemployment of who? Who are taken into consideration? The housewife, the women who stopped working, the young adults waiting to go to university, the above 25 without jobs? "
which you did not answer and which you will never be able to answer since no one knows to date, who does the CSO takes into account for the calculation of the unemployed percentage.
Ali mansoor is a brilliant person and so is rama, no doubts about that. The link you directed me to talked about Air Mauritius and STC - I am very harsh against the STC these last years. specially since the hedging with the mahanagar refineries.. i wrote a lot of articles about that. Nevertheless, What does rama sithanen got to do with STC ??
STC and APM ! APM which is an independent body !! we cannot blame rama for decisions of STC and APM !! that's absurd.
Nice knowing your opinions. All the best sanjay. late here. goodnight.
SP was a good job since no companies closed down. That's 1.
2. Good money after bad management - take the goldman sachs and the many others .. the USA saved..also some examples in switzerland. Oh!Germany too ! Not to mention UK !!
3. I have no idea of sunset industry.
4. The question is really simple, reply it if you can.
Would pravin have done better than rama ?
Will pravin do better than rama?
The odds are that rama has better capabilities than pravin, by experience, by knowledge and by leadership skills.
I would bet rama can have more than 4% votes nationally.
The choice is thus clear. Rama should be the FM if we take into consideration who should be the right person for the job. In a good democracy, it would be the one who has the most knowledge and that's rama sithanen.
My final words.. pheew.. lolz.. goodnight sanjay.. :)
I don't think the CSO has a variable definition of unemployment or they make one up depending upon the season of the year.
Well a Finance Minister who spent so much time talking about skeletons of the previous govt doesn't want to give us a decent explanation about how we lost Rs3 billion at the STC? Did we really lose Rs3 billion? By the way Rama was the one who came with then new monthly formula for the APM and the changed happen a couple of months before the scandal broke. We definitely need a FFC to investigate this mega-skeleton. Too bad Suren Dayal didn't ask for one here.
Can you be a bean-counter and still be brillant? You've must been reading L'express too much am afraid.
1&2. A problem doesn't go away if you shovel it under the carpet. Employment insurance is a much better deal than SP.
Poorly run companies and banks don't exactly play the same role in a modern economy. It made sense to save the US banks but it doesn't make sense to save badly-managed companies with our money.
3. That would be our sugar industry.
4. Anybody would have done better than Rama and the clowns from the world bank. Ask Malawi.
Sithanen has badly mauled our economy and the social fabric has become dangerously thin.
Here's one of his bright ideas. Create massive poverty, open casinos everywhere + loto and then use the gaming taxes to reduce porverty. Brillant eh? So surprised why the Nobel committee keep on ignoring these mega-achievements.
Ashfaq: The company would have eneve delocalised, they took the money because it was there. simple.
why did someone climb everest - because it was there!
I have seen the accounts mate, I know what Im talking about. sad I cant give details here but believe me the company im talking about wouldnt have closed down.
Oh dear Mr Jagatsingh, you can see what sort of uphill task Mauritius is facing! Even telling hot air from brilliance does not come easy. It is without surprise that Rama is the world's best business brain. LOL. Thank you l'Express & Co indeed for comforting our self-centeredness.
@Tiger Moods: LOl! I know it's not going to be easy. But we've made some progress in getting people to think by themselves by debunking a number of things.
@Ashfaq: Your answer as to who gets counted as unemployed always existed. Our CSO uses standard ILO definitions. Please check definitions of terms used in the labour digest (pages 9-10). You may also wish to call them up for additional info. They are very helpful.
Also Ashfaq, on a pure logical basis, you can't say you need a stimulus package and at the same time brag that your economy is creating 10,000 jobs per year.
Sithanen's numbers don't add up. He's screwed Mauritius up big time.
I have been reading some of your blogs lately, your views on the management of the economy by Sithanen is quite interesting. Although there is no need for me to defend him, what is the role of the PM in all this ? Are the economic policies decided solely by the FM? what is the role of Cabinet and the PM. ?. NR has said that all of the economic reforms bears his signature too. So who should take the blame ?. Secondly, economic policies is about making choices, what you advocate is certainly worth entertaining, however, you cannot guarantee better results given the same economic circumstances. As for why NR is getting rid of the FM, better ask him, rather than hiding behind the lame excuse of his prerogative.
Thanks for dropping by.
As I've said before the PM has certainly played the biggest role in letting the FM screw up the economy for almost 5 years now. But he's not the only one who's shirked his responsibilities. Berenger allowed the FM to get away with economic murder and was more interested in joining Labour than doing the job we pay him for.
Part of the mainstream press should also take a good chunk of the blame for being happy partners in crime.
We also had a rather weak cabinet which was no match for a mesmerizing but deceptive FM.
It would not have been difficult to do better than the FM. Here are some thoughts on this.
The PM has also an economic adviser , one Andrew Scott, from the LSE. I can't guarantee that he is not a neocon. Maybe he doesn't want to upset the apple cart. Ramgoolam's economic adviser the first time he became PM was Alan Waters, the economic guru of Margaret Thatcher. Do you see a pattern here?
The good news is that the debate level in Mauritius has gone up quite a bit thanks to the numerous platforms that we now have. God bless blogosphere!!!
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