2014: The Year in Review (Q4)

October: Parliament dissolved in trivial manner. Don't bet on Sithanen to eliminate poverty. June happy Pistorius gonna pay something. Mauritian democracy competitive again. Tackling unemployment: how do the zinkus stack up?

November: Indira's assassination: 30 years already. Suddenly, Labour/MMM to create 60k jobs. Something for you to sniff.

December: What voters want. 63% of poll says Ramgoolam not winning majority. Reform wasn't good for poor. Mauritius says no to wicked plan. Claudette's visit turns 35. Manou's dismissal is inelegant and silly.

Read the review for Q1, Q2 and Q3.

How Long Things Take

1. Presentation of Financial Secretary to one MPC meeting -- about three quarters of an hour
2. Presentation of one UK budget by Gordon Brown -- about forty-five minutes
3. Implementation of free education in Mauritius -- literally overnight
4. Creation of the world -- 7 days
5. Kurukshetra War -- 18 days
6. Creation of the American middle-class -- 7 years
7. 2005 economic reform in Mauritius -- 8-year poop and still waiting for Godot
8. Deactivation of Mauritian demographic bomb -- 10 years
9. Malawi following famine-creating policies courtesy of the World Bank -- 2 decades

Mansoor Resigns, Almost

So mentioned Le Mauricien yesterday. Which is saying that the FS crossed unauthorised lines and was cut to size by someone in government. He apparently wrote a letter of resignation but was convinced by a Senior Minister to take it back.

Why on earth did the Minister persuade him? He didn't like the font used?

Looks like AM could make use of this extremely useful guide.

What Manou and Rama Agree On

That would be the crucial importance of savings for our economy. Read us. Makes kind of sense right? That's what left over after we make our purchases. The Governor's views are currently on display in the media for consumption so no need to repeat them here. What you may have forgotten are how close they are to those that Sithanen held when he became Finance Minister for the second time back in 2005. Here's what he said:

CSO is forecasting a very low savings rate of 19.5 per cent for 2005. Here again, we must be utterly concerned. Firstly, because as a nation we are consuming at a faster rate than we are producing. Secondly, because the savings rate is below the investment rate. This will exert demand pressures on prices and will have an adverse impact on the current account of the balance of payments [emphasis mine].

Which gives us a beautiful benchmark to evaluate the so-called reforms he initiated. I guess.

XLD: There Are Two Types of Actions

Education Spending Not Alone in Falling Behind Inflation

So we learned today from the DPM. Expenditure on major pipe replacements for the past five years have been as follows: 2005/06: Rs225 million; 2006/07: Rs200 million; 2007/08: Rs160 million and 2008/09: Rs150 million; and Rs210 million in 2010. But Rs400 million have been spent in 2011.

The only two things that seemed to have kept up with rising prices are the crappy working paper industry and the attention given to crappy bean-counting indices.

On Dit Merci Qui?

Understanding Resilience: Part 4

To maintain or improve the lot of as many people as possible you need a progressive taxation system and some growth. If you lower taxes by too much the finances of the government will become overdependent on the realisation of higher growth rates. As we've seen happen with the policies put in place by the toxic bean-counting duet.

This cannot make Mauritius more resilient for sure.

Understanding Resilience: Part 3

We know that too much foreign debt can make a country bankrupt: ask Thailand. Here too we've been taking up too much of it for the past 5 years. Indeed, the share of foreign debt in the total debt of the central government has literally doubled between 2006 and 2010. That's all the more worrisome given that these monies have not been used to improve our competitiveness or reduce frustration levels of the common citizen. Far from it.

Understanding Resilience: Part 2

Halving top tax rates and easing the purchase of big cars may have provided Ramgoolam with bragging rights: Ferraris, Lamborghinis and loads of other expensive cars routinely slide on our velvet roads.

But as we don't make these gas-guzzling vehicles we had to import them. And we've paid for these babies essentially by selling our land to rich foreigners probably after telling them that we're building a society for the few not for the many. That's not sustainable. And what's not sustainable cannot make us resilient.

And this folly has come at a heavy cost: a carefully crafted masterpiece, our welfare state, has been upset. So that Mauritius has become a less exciting place and FDI has collapsed in the first quarter of the year.

Looks like the toxic party that was sold to Ramgoolam is pretty much over. He should now revert to basic governance. Right away.

Understanding Resilience: Part 1

As Usual The IMF Didn't See It Coming

I mean the crisis that started in Tunisia and which has since spread to Egypt. See, they commended the authorities' sound macroeconomic management and the reforms implemented since 2004, which had strengthened the resilience of the Egyptian economy in the face of the global crisis in the case of Egypt last April while executive directors noted that Tunisia weathered the global crisis well, largely reflecting its sound macroeconomic management and structural reforms over the last decade and timely responses since the onset of the crisis a few months ago.

So their analysis is too bland to pick up social volcanoes that are brewing right under the surface. By the way doesn't their language sound familiar to you?

Economic Resilience: Ramgoolam Style

Rain is late to arrive and that could halve GDP growth. That's an external factor?

57 Countries Had Better Growth Rates Than Us For 4 Straight Years

The years are 2005 to 2008 and the data is from the World Bank. That should steal away the thunder from the few bean-counters around who keep overselling their achievements as far as the management of the economy goes. Here are some of the countries that had better growth rates than Mauritius in each of these four years:

Argentina and Brazil (Lol! they turned their back on the Bretton-Wood sisters in 2005), Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mozambique, Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia.

How do you like the perspective?

Sithanen Story Spurious

The number of unemployed people increased by 7,300 to a record 66,600 in 2007 the year he called an early harvest. While it's true that it fell by 6,400 in 2008 it is quite a stretch of the imagination to see a bumper crop in there. Indeed, 60,200 of our citizens didn't have a job at the end of 2008 which translates into the double-digit unemployment rate of 10.4%. Or if you prefer 3,700 more people were jobless than at the end of 2005.

Maladi Inn Sanze, Remed Bizin Sanze