Eski CEB Fer Lekonomi Ek Ban Kontra IPP?

En ban argiman ki veikile par media oligarsi ek so ban idio itil se ki ban IPP van kuran a en pri pli feb ki CEB kav prodir. Se pa fos me nu bizin kone kifer li kumsa. Anu ekut ki Assirvaden ti dir dan en antrevi dan Mauritius Times an 2010 a lepok kot li ti tierman CEB.

"Alors que les investissements privés sont amortis par un taux d'utilisation maximale des équipements installés, le CEB doit se contenter de la demande restante, avec un taux d'utilisation de ses machines qui ne dépasse guère 50% de leur capacité en moyenne. C'est du gaspillage. C'est essentiellement cet élément qui vient fausser les prix dan un raisonnement comparatif. Pour faire simple, disons que le coût de production du CEB est nettement inférieur au coût d'achat avec les IPPs pour un même taux d'utilisation des équipements installés. Dans la plupart des contrats, les pénalités sont quasiment inexistants, et les indisponibilités doivent être compensées par le CEB en faisant fonctionner les équipements les plus onéreux."

Sematikman sitiasion kuma dan tiart swivan. CEB kav prodir kuran a en pri A buku pli feb ki pri V ki li aste ek IPP me akoz kontra manday li zis kav prodir en kantite residiel a en pri B ki pli elve ki pri V.

How Will You Use Your Free Electricity?

“Je suis là pour travailler dans l’intérêt du pays

et tant que je serais ministre,

il n’y aura aucune baisse du tarif.

Que ce soit bien clair.”

Ivan Collendavelloo, 2016

The one the CEB will soon supply to you if it does a very average job of using current technology to make us benefit from our geography and topography. See, the cost of producing electricity using wind and sun has decreased significantly while storage has improved enough – one option is a giant version of your smartphone battery – to bring renewable energy close to base-load status. So two things should happen very soon. One is that the cost of electricity – by the way we’re talking clean power here – should fall and two it will be free and even negative on a increasing number of days.

This will require that we tweak our weather reports so they inform us of the expected daily electricity production and its cost which will in turn determine for example when we wash one or two extra loads of clothes and run our businesses a bit more intensively. Other countries like Germany and the UK are already there. We should too. To crawl back from the deep mess we’re in. And not waste another five years.

References

1. Prices Go Negative in Germany, a Positive for Energy Users, New York Times, December 25, 2017.

2. Government Programme 2020-24, Comments, S. Jagatsingh, Forthcoming, 2020.

Why the Utility Regulatory Authority Should Be Scrapped

Given the size of our island prices of energy sources can and should be determined by Cabinet after some analysis is done at the Ministry of Finance. The more so that the link between international energy prices and what we pay for them here has been severed for almost a decade to finance a flat tax which has broken our economy. Even some back-of-envelope calculations would be a big improvement. This is especially true in a global environment where clean energy is becoming increasingly cheap and abundant as storage options expand.

We certainly cannot consider the price of water in isolation – the CEB and the CWA regularly clip an annual combined surplus of around Rs2 billion – especially when we've been ripped off with uncompetitive electricity prices because of abusive and confidential contracts or Ministers who don't know what they are doing. The argument that the CEB produces less than 50% of our electricity and therefore disqualifies it as the one who sets its price is ridiculous because it is an institution that belongs to every Mauritian even those that are shareholders in the IPPs.

Did 36% of The New CEB Recruits Come From Rose-Hill?

This is what MP Osman Mahomed essentially wanted to know from our DPM on Tuesday. He actually requested four pieces of information on each recruit that joined the utility since January 2015. One of these was their residential address. Collendavelloo replied that it would be unlawful for the data controller who keeps this information to release it. He also mentioned the numbers per district had already been given in reply to a previous question by the same MP.

Residential addresses might indeed be the wrong information to ask. What could instead have been asked is the size of the smallest radius of the area from which most if not all of the 103 recruits – out of 290 – came from. In fact the data should be sliced in any which way and any bias should be flagged and reported to the relevant authorities for further action.

Poll Says Almost Nobody Will Follow Collendavelloo Into Opposition

If he was to be sacked as Minister. It's a very small sample but we can compare it to the actual events when they happen. Hopefully very soon. All 12 poll participants thought Husnoo would stay in the PJ government. No big surprise here. Fowdar and Benydin (Toolsyraj is the correct name, sorry) are not expected to accompany the leader of the kare kare party. Fowdar is dead against the privatisation of the CWA -- wonder what he thinks about the private companies that the CEB has just set up -- while Benydin has been a union boss for a long time.

Boissezon is a Minister for the first time. Don't see him leaving this behind. Especially when you consider that the ML should join the Dodo on the list of extinct animals shortly. Looks like Rutnah might not stay back. But that was before he said that he was a little fed up with the party. He has also showed up at the Line Barracks before to express support to his "elder brother" Rama Valayden and told the media that he was not desperate about being an MP. Plus if Boissezon leaves Rutnah could get his portfolio.

Gayan should be the only one following IC into the opposition. So overall PJ's majority should improve a bit. And we might get 2-3 new Ministers.

Mauritius at 50: Getting Ready

Here are some of the things we should do:

1. Bring basic -- very basic -- management back. Like building another reservoir so we can catch more of all the water that falls on our head every year. And of course put more money into fixing leaking pipes. Instead of squandering billions into building new offices because one Minister wants more legroom.

2. Have an A380 fly over Champ de Mars at noon sharp. The peculiar thing about this plane is that it would not have any name. Only a few digits. 12.3.68.

3. New national logo and tagline. Which recognise that we can have the world's best air quality. This will help improve our management. Ask Southwest Airlines.

4. Significantly reduce the 450 amputations that are done every year. We could start by immediately taxing soft drinks more and increasing the number of weekly PE classes in our schools to three. Redesigning the curriculum with the 9-amputations-a-week statistic in mind and by going for noncumulative semesters will also produce a better learning experience. And say goodbye to obese parrots.

5. Reinstate progressive taxation so we grow faster again. And allow us to be more mindful.

6. Tweak our electoral system in a thoughtful way. Without introducing a dose of PR and the dangerous party lists that come with it. A few hysterical Marxists who want to do "autogestion" with our iPhone of constitution won't like it. But that won't prevent us from sleeping tight.

7. Allow kreol as an option in which debates in Parliament can happen. That's the language more than 8 out 10 Mauritians speak at home. Lalit can provide an initial list of unparliamentary words or add an entry on Wikipedia.

8. Schedule Zurnal Televize (ZT) on the first channel at 19h30. Have one reporter posted in each of these three cities: San Francisco, London and Tokyo to help cure navel-gazing.

9. Merge the CWA and CEB into a superutility. To protect us from severe Ministerial delusions. And to go back to our interesting 1996 carbon footprint.

Saving the rest for Mauritius at 500.

2013: The Year in Review

January: The Economist says party lists are evil. Humanity starts its biggest gathering. Former MK boss explains how he was fired. Berenger announces he has throat cancer, steps down. Joseph beats Jackie Chan and wins award. Gandhi's assassination turns 65.

February: IPP contracts made public, finally. Heavy-rain shuts down water-starved Dodoland. Pistorius shoots model girlfriend by mistake. CEB contemplates getting Mauritius its own Fukushima. His Airness turns 50 and world longs to see Mike back. After attacking our rupee with our own money Duval tries to usurp the PM's prerogatives. PM says changes to electoral system shouldn't be done on a whim, promises consultative paper.

March: Women contribute a third more than what Mao thought. Fifteen centimetres of rain kill eleven in a flash.

Read the review for Q2, Q3 and Q4.

Why Government Securities Are The Safest

Because of two things it can do that private corporations cannot. The first one is to collect taxes and the second one is to print money. So that if a big payment is due the state can always raise income or corporate taxes or have its adviser -- the Bank of Mauritius -- order a container of the good stuff from Thomas de La Rue. But you don't want to play with these levers for day to day matters. Or to compensate for dumb policies. Nope. You want to design policies that are at least sustainable if not thoughtful.

Still these two trump cards puts government in a very strong position to undertake the biggest projects. Which is why, for example, it used to produce all of our electricity through one of its manifestations.

Mauritius To Get Own Fukushima

That's an intriguing possibility when you have a look at the Integrated Electricity Plan for the next 10 years published by the CEB. Stop at the second paragraph of page seven to read that "as implausible as it may appear, nuclear technology is a generation option".

I'm sorry but it's not an option for us because there are way too many idiots walking around in Mauritius. Besides we won't even need a tsunami to trigger our own nuclear disaster: we can count on a few centimetres of rain, can't we?

Not a bad idea to get inspired by Germany which less than ninety days after Fukushima had announced that they would be phasing out nuclear power within ten years.

IPP Contracts To Be Made Public, Finally

Tomorrow according to one newspaper. The government also wants to release the Hunton and Williams report that apparently wasn't too favourable towards the private producers. This is definitely good news as energy is an important building block of our competitiveness.

Hopefully we'll see how we messed up and restore some sanity in this sector.

Ki Servis Piblik u Truv Korek?

Mwa mo bien kontan (mont bisiklet?) Passport Office. Sa desantralizasyon ek simplifaksyon bann form la finn kontribye pu fer enn ti-mirak: u gagn u paspor andan enn semen. La pos usi finn ameliore buku. Plizier zot kontwar servi sa ti masin elektronik pu imprim enn tem-kolkamani ki fer travay-la al buku pli vit. Enn pake sa bann biro-la usi erkonn. Donk li pa mal agreab al lapos. CEB usi ena bann kontwar ki furni mem nivo servis.

Mauritius Telecom so servis ti kav buku pli bon si nu kontinye kuma avan. Sa servis MyT la dapre lord pa enn cheetah kinn diizign sa. Nu servis ledikasyon piblik dan dife net: 30% zelev CPE pa pase sak lane.

Ale u tur aster. Ki u kontan, ki u pa like?

CEB Should Have Produced All Our Electricity

We're a country with a small land mass. CEB used to be the only electricity producer when one private concern under the first Navin Ramgoolam government was allowed to join that market. And then Federation II took power and that strategic institution was declared broke to allow more abusive and confidential contracts to be signed in the back of the citizens of this country.

And then in November 2007 Ramgoolam went through his tarzan-like-chess-thumping routine to say that this couldn't go on and that he'd change his name if he would allow the good people of Mauritius to be subjected to this kind of rip-off. Even Berenger said that the rates of return of the IPP were too high and he suggested a 10% rate to maintain a facade of credibility after sitting on his hands when he was Prime Minister.

I am not too sure 10% is the right number. The discipline of arriving at a fair rate of return in these particular cases is well established and can be used to determine the amount of money that has to be returned to the people of Mauritius through the CEB. What I am sure of though is that

1. Contracts involving billions of rupees of public funds cannot be confidential and more importantly they cannot be abusive.
2. CEB should again take the lead because it belongs to every citizen of this country.
3. This matter could have been resolved very quickly. Going forward, it can be resolved in a week.
4. Abusive energy prices have along with the other blunders of Sithanen made Mauritius a more vulnerable and less competitive country.

Does Ramgoolam want to keep his name?

How Can a Casino Lose Money?

I don't have an answer to that. What I do note though is some kind of give-your-public-institution-a-bad-name-and-hang-it disease that has been afflicting our country for too long. Take the CEB for example. It was declared absolutely dependent on private capital about a decade ago and found guilty of all kinds of sins one of which apparently seemed to have found its way back into the 12th report the NESC has just released.

A craving which eventually translated into higher electricity prices for us and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seriously degrade the competitiveness of Mauritius Inc. That situation was so ridiculous that it even got a gullible Ramgoolam to do his chess-thumping routine nearly two years ago. What he termed a historic agreement then has still to make iota of difference for a super majority of voters.

Same issue at the CNT. How can it not be profitable? Well if you had a look at the types of buses that they've been putting on the roads for ages compared to the types of cars that they've been allowed to purchase you could be getting closer to a hint.

We know for a fact that the private sector doesn't have a monopoly over common sense or good management for that matter. We've seen proof of that again with the recent and controversial stimulus package: it seemed to be such a marvellous thing as long as it remained opaque. But the private sector can take some comfort in not having designed such an absurd scheme.

What's next? The privatisation of the anti-drug and smuggling unit?

Isn't it Ironic?

About nine years ago a chairman of the CEB declared that the public utility didn't have the financial means to expand so that it would have to rely on private capital. That reliance translated into the fleecing of its customers as the CEB ended up, quite conveniently for some, buying power at uncompetitive prices. At about the same time our government offered its guarantee without which the infamous Illovo deal wouldn't have gone through.

Fastforward to the present and a section of the private sector now wants taxpayers' money to apparently stay afloat and to avoid having to sack people and they don't guarantee that they will not eliminate jobs even if they get saved by government. That's of course after the rupee was depreciated from twenty-five to the USD to about 35, interest rates were cut and corporate tax rates were slashed. And the Joint Economic Council is now going to ask for help just in case they might need it.

What do you make of all this Alanis?

Who Should Get the Top Job at the CEB

That's kind of easy. He should remind Ramgoolam of his one-year old promise of bringing down electricity prices to more competitive and reasonable levels. That's very important because abusive energy prices kills our competitiveness and makes the poor poorer.

A no-nonsense approach should also be preferred over depreciated qualifications. That is he should make sure that the customer is not taken for a ride irrespective of whether oil prices are USD 10 a barrel or USD 150 a barrel like has been happening for way too long now. In other words we need someone like Clency Bibi.