Voodoo Economist Strikes Again

This is how Sithanen responded to the claim of Roshi Badhain that a couple of directors of IFS shared a billion-rupee dividend without paying any taxes on it:

"Les deux actionnaires sont Couldip Basant Lala et Kapil Dev Joory qui sont deux entrepreneurs qui se sont sacrifiés pour le développement du Global Business à Maurice. Quel est le mal si aujourd’hui ils sont financièrement récompensés pour leurs investissements?"

What's wrong is that the stupid Sithanen tax-cuts have not generated the 8% growth he promised in any of the 11 years they were supposed to leading to a GDP gap which should reach Rs1.2trn when we welcome the new year. What it has also generated is the smallest share of the national cake in two decades for more than two-thirds of the population. As Government needs money to make sure social mobility is alive and kicking and for so many other things it would have made perfect sense for it to have taxed this dividend at 25% leaving the two directors with Rs750m to split among themselves.

Contrast this stand to two interesting statements he made before. The first one was when there was an uproar about the degradation of the environment in a neighbourhood of QB because of a casino. He was heard on radio stating how much money gambling brings into the state coffers -- I think he mentioned something like a billion -- and asked where else we would get the money. That's of course after slashing tax rates to build a facade of a low-tax jurisdiction.

The second statement happened in the midst of massive deposit withdrawal when he started taxing interest income and upsetting the financial plans of thousands. This time he was heard imploring depositors to show some patriotism. That is to keep their hard-earned savings in the banks and get taxed. What did Samuel Johnson say about patriotism again?

Momentum Builds for Unique Candidate of Common Sense

In the forthcoming by-election in No. 18. Something interesting is brewing. Finally.

State To Squander Billions, Again

The first time was when several billions of rupees of the fruits of our economic diplomacy were gifted to a sunset industry which at the start of the bean-counting reforms in 2005 represented a little over 4% of our economy. 10 years later its weight was four times smaller. Talk about a strategic blunder of epic proportions or is it a monumental skills mismatch? Naturally this was to be followed by sending our savings rate to a 30-year low and severing the link between international oil prices and what Mauritian voters paid to fill up their cars. To name just a few. So yeah, dumb policy-making had made Mauritius a lot more vulnerable and treaty risk a lot larger. Than it ought to have been.

Now another Minister wants to sink billions of a grant received from India -- who has millions to lift out of poverty -- into buildings we don't need partly because he's not happy with the amount of legroom he enjoys in our historic Parliament.