ACIM Does its Homework

2013: The Year in Review (Q2)

April: Cellphone turns 40. Iron Lady dead at 87. Boston Marathon ends in carnage. Human computer dead at 73. Manu wins 20th, Ivanovic to be tested for rabies.

May: India welcomes friend back as Chinese Premier. Manraj report to cost an extra billion. One famous Himalayan hug turns 60.

June: Why Club M will miss World Cup in Brazil. Amazing ad gets 2013 WWDC started. Confederation cup offers sneak preview of next World Cup. How long things take. ACIM makes serious arguments to the MPC, the Financial Secretary a fool of himself, again. State flip flops on the CNT.

Read the review for Q1, Q3 and Q4.

ACIM Makes Serious Arguments To MPC

They rightly wanted the repo rate to go up by 15-20 basis points because

1. year-on-year inflation is already higher than it should be and soon hovering between 5% and 6%
2. inflation hits the poor harder
3. the latest household budget survey shows that economic growth of the last five years has not been inclusive

No one in her right mind can disagree with these facts. A few comments on them:

1. one former Governor likened inflation to radioactivity
2. South Africa has calculated that the inflation that hits the poor is 3% higher
3. as expected the flat tax disease has operated like a reverse Robin Hood

Furthermore even the JEC -- not exactly the source of the most progressive economic statements since dinosaurs were wiped out from the face of the earth -- asked that the repo be left unchanged. 

How can you then explain that the Financial Secretary asked for 50 basis-point cut? And that the MPC ended up lowering the key rate by 25 basis points?

Simple: there are way too many people on the MPC and at the Ministry of Finance who don't seem to understand the scope of an MPC. That's unacceptable. Because I am sure that the cost of running the MPC is nothing to be sneezed at. We should be able to count on Mr. Alan Ganoo to find that out for us. And to apply parliamentary pressure so that the MPC works for most of us.

State Attempt to Clamp Down Free Speech Backfires

And angst-ridden Sithanen releases grants of consumer advocacy group ACIM in a hurry. You will recall that these were withheld for a year when the latter protested against the abusive petroleum prices that the good people of Mauritius were being fleeced with. The official explanation is that the STC lost Rs3 billion on hedging operations and that the organisation has to recoup the shortfall by making us pay for it.

The snag is that with the automatic pricing mechanism the STC didn't have to do any hedging as pump prices should inextricably reflect international prices. Rs3 billion is a lot of money. Government could have used this sum to make the SC/HSC exams free for several decades. And Sithanen still hasn't told us how all this happened.

Aren't you happy you're gonna vote soon?