Why Singapore's GDP Per Capita is 2X Japan's

On a PPP basis that is. And more than three times that of Malaysia. So location doesn't explain everything. Making the purchase of cars difficult has helped quite a bit. It was not a bad idea to keep good ties with the British either – something which Mauritius also did – and having the government intervene heavily. 

At What Age Are Mauritians Dying These Days?

This is different from life expectancy which looks at how long a baby born in a year might expect to live on average. Which by the way was 77.69 years for women and 70.59 years for men back in 2012. So baby girls born 5 years ago should expect to watch 7 EPL seasons more than their male counterparts. And eat an extra 7,775 meals assuming they have their last kari pwason ek farata a few minutes before leaving. The numbers for Rodrigues are better: 78.47 years for women and 73.27 for men. That is baby girls in Rodrigues were expected to live an extra 9 months and baby boys 2.68 years more. The urit will definitely not be leaping for joy. The overall number for our Republic in 2015 was 74.6 years or 9.1 years less than world-beating Japan.

It hasn't always been like that. At least for women. Indeed female life expectancy for the island of Mauritius has been up to two-and-a-half years more than those for our sister island. This was true in 1983. The situation had reversed by 1992 and since 1998 women on the two islands were expected to live within one-and-half years of each other. Life expectancy for men in Rodrigues has been higher by at least two years between 2006 and 2012 even hitting a max of 3 years in 2009. Mauritian men could probably catch up by running at least 5 minutes every day. A Bus Rapid Transit system should make that a lot easier.

To answer the question in the title I looked at the age of the people who passed away in the last three days. The average for the 130 of our citizens who just departed is 68.06 years. The standard deviation is 15.22 years.

What an Articulated Bus Looks Like

IMF Doesn't Trust Own Currency Valuations

As has been reported by the institution's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) before. So if the currency models of the IMF have been found wanting I don't see how the Minister of Finance can use them to justify the sneaky double-digit depreciation orchestrated by the BoM. Here's a backgrounder to see clearer.

Harbour Bridge Project Should Be Scrapped

We can spend the money a lot better. Like injecting billions of rupees into the CNT to purchase enough buses to match the calibre of our new airport terminal. So that when you hop onto one you are not putting your life at risk. This should help people leave their cars at home and reduce the pressure on our roads and health system. And help Mauritius overtake Estonia as the place with the planet's best air quality.

Besides it would make a lot of sense -- especially after we've seen what Tsunamis have done in 2004 and 2011 -- to displace the centre of gravity of our economic activity southwards. So that if Port-Louis is struck by a deadly wall of water, we can be back in business a lot quicker. Elsewhere. But we don't want to build a new city on our best arable land. No, we should use our marginal ones. Foodwise.

State Proudly Hatching Traffic Frankenstein

By building a lot of roads worth several billions of our tax rupees. With the hope of reducing road congestion. This is unlikely to happen because traffic follows enlargement of road network literally in lockstep.

Will the LRT contemplated help? Not necessarily our best move. We could instead consider intermediate solutions like those implemented in Curitiba. Investing in buses of higher quality and fitting them with cameras would also enable travellers to enjoy the world's second best air quality in a more relaxed environment. Almost round-the-clock. And at the same time save the views that nature has made us famous for from a concrete invasion.

This will depend on thoughtful policy-making. Something that's been absent in Dodoland for several years. And which is too much to ask from the PMSD.

The Economic Mess is Actually Bigger

Than previously reported. Although I had forgotten to add the budget of Jeetah's Ministry I didn't include the much larger capital repayments either. So that now -- based on the same budget 2010 numbers -- we have debt servicing 82% and 80% larger than the education budgets for 2012 and 2013 respectively. It was already 38% a couple of years ago.The total debt service for these four years is a staggering Rs69.25 billion and the corresponding figure for education spending is only Rs42.62 billion -- Rs27 billion more. That's roughly 10 Midlands Dam or one LRT plus a couple of billions to spare. In case you're wondering.

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.

Is the TINA Disease Spreading To The CNT?

That's a potential conclusion on reading Le Matinal which is announcing that the state has decided to privatise the organisation because it is making losses and has debt. The article adds that planning is not needed: only vision is needed. Really?

I disagree. For sure people differ in their ability to read the tea leaves and peer into the future but planning is a building block of basic management. If you're not gonna -- or are not able to -- do anything else you should plan.

Meet The Tuk-tuk

Making it Free is Not Enough

Public Transportation that is. Buses, which are likely to be around for a while, need to be sufficiently comfortable, accessible to handicapped people, run at reasonable frequency and till late everyday and incorporate video surveillance equipment. Otherwise people here will not leave their cars at home.

And government should immediately copy what people in Santiago, Chile did more than 20 years ago: fit fume-emitting buses with catalytic converters for free and save on health costs. Our lungs won't mind.

Reintroduction of Daylight Saving Time Confirms Mauritius Hasn't Got Its Priorities Right

Especially after you consider the government's dumb response when oil prices almost tripled from USD 50 to USD 147 a barrel over the last three years has been to make the purchase of bigger cars easier. Not making a sufficiently comfortable and reliable public transportation system available so that commuters would leave their cars at home is additional proof that we are suffering from a serious breakdown in leadership and management here.

It would also have been better for Ramgoolam to make good on his year-old chess-thumping promise of reviewing the abusive IPP contracts. Speaking about priorities, here is one more: we need to build another reservoir as quickly as possible or we run the risk of a repeat of 1999 when a serious drought halved our economic output. The latter risk, you would have noticed, is an entirely domestic issue: I guess you can call it an internal shock.