Showing posts with label Bagatelle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bagatelle. Show all posts

Monday, April 1, 2019

Sithanen Flat Tax Fuels More Street Protests

This time it was in Curepipe. Citizens were outraged that they've been without running water for up to two weeks. But what else could we expect when regressive tax policies have crippled government so much that it can't even pay for its own eye-hospital? And things will get worse as long as we remain on the wrong side of compounding. Boolell was there trying to score some cheap points -- the government revenue shortfall between 2005 and 2014 was big enough to change the 1,600km of leaking pipes at least five times over.

24/7 water is unlikely to happen when Collendavelloo completes his first term as Minister in the next few months. This is kind of obvious. See, when he took over about 45% of households enjoyed an all-day supply and this week he said it had reached 70%. So if it took 4 years to increase the percentage of subscribers getting round-the-clock water by 25 percentage points (by probably changing around 730km of leaking pipes) it will surely take more than a year to add the last 30% subscribers. Even if the Bagatelle dam comes into operation soon. In fact on the current trajectory 24/7 is not happening before the 2024 election year. Which is a good reason to put as much pressure as possible on government so it brings back some sanity to our tax structure. Because we surely don’t want 400,000 people to have water problems for another 4-5 years.

Public debate on this matter can also be enhanced if the Minister puts at least three very basic series of data on the CWA's website (the last annual report available there is for 2015). These are the length of the water network at the end of each year and the length and cost of pipes laid each year since the end of 1967. 

Monday, January 2, 2017

Mauritius in 2017

Thousands will again be denied a place in a secondary school because of a badly designed learning experience. Our roads will kill another 140. Eight or nine amputations will be performed every week or about 400 for the full year. Mauritius will shutdown around Saint Valentine as soon as we get some heavy rainfall. The CWA will announce harsher cuts right after. We will send a team to the IMO for the first time and get ready to participate in PISA 2018.

Roughly 1,000 people will be thrown into poverty. Every three months. Thanks to the trickle-down economics which has been going on for a decade now. The flat tax trap will cause the GDP shortfall to reach a trillion rupees about half of which would have happened on Lepep's watch. This will make government increasingly unpopular. Voters will keep on getting smarter. And that will be bad news for our political class. The water supply will improve as Bagatelle dam comes into operation in the second half of the year. Potential tragedy of a horrific number of fatalities during Porlwi by Light.

Quite a few of the bad events don't need to happen or can be mitigated. Like how does Mahebourg by Light sound? We could also avoid several road deaths if Lepep recognises that it might have acted in haste and brings an improved point system back.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Bagatelle or Phase 2 of Midlands Dam?

Bagatelle Dam will hold 15 million m3 and cost between Rs 3.1-3.4 billion while Phase 2 of the Midlands Dam involves 17 million m3 and by my rough estimates should come with a tag of Rs1.2 billion. Isn't that getting 2 million m3 for a couple of billions less?