Lepep Pe Desan Lor Sime Pu Ki Ran So BRP

E aret latak lor so leta providans ki anpes 1/3 Morisyin tom dan lamizer. Ena pagli mami ki alor ki nu system lasante pibilk in krash ti dir resaman ki 18.5 milyar rupi ki nu depanse ladan en fardo mari lur. Anfet si ti bizin depans mem pursantaz GDP ki Sesel e nu ti gayn krwasans 8% ki ti sipoze gayne ek flat tax 15% Sithanen be nu ti bizin depans 93.2 milyar rupi u 5X plis.

Nu mark nu prezans Samdi 11 Ziyet, 13h, Sant Sosial Mari Ren de Lape ki truv anfas Lanbasad de Frans, Por-Lwi.

Eski BRP Iniversel A 60 An Sutenab?

Wi. Kuma tiart la montre nu mem si nu kontinie gayn sa to krwasans fatra mwayin de 3.3% ki nun gayne ant 2006 ek 2024 lor prosin 10 an pwa BRP dan lekonomi (GDP) pu bese de 7.8% a 7%. Nun fer lipotez ki to linflasion prosin 10 an pu an mwayen seki li fin ete ant 2001 ek 2024. Aster si nu gayn 5.1% de krwasans mwayen be BRP pu reprezant selman 5.9% GDP. 4.5% si mwayen krwasans GDP la vin 8%.

Donk tre sutenab. Selman sa de dernie bidze inbesil kin prezante la pu kontinie diminie nu to krwasans parski li kontinie asfixie lekonomi parey kuma tu ban bidze depi 2006. Ramgoolam ankor ena letan pu amen ban sanzman ki bizin dan finance bill pu bidze 2026/27.

Sithanen Toohrooh Crosses £100 Billion

Recall that the Sithanen Toohrooh (ST) is the cumulative difference between the GDP that was supposed to be generated by the 15% flat tax and its actual number. Given that we never grew at the expected 8% rate promised by Dr. TINAnen during the past nineteen years – average growth rates between 2006 and 2024 is 3.4% or less than half the target – except in one year and that too only because the economy had contracted by nearly 15% in 2020 due to Covid it has steadily been increasing since 2006 and together with some of the most catastrophic policy decisions ever have fairly disintegrated our great and beautiful country. So much so that the ST reached Rs6 trillion in 2024 rupees a few weeks before voters produced the third 60-0 of our post-independence history.

Clearly and as the chart confirms most of that GDP gap happened on Pravind Jugnauth's watch (almost 78% of it) with SAJ accounting for 8.5% (Roshi Bhadain was in government during this time) and Navin Ramgoolam 13.5% of the total. For ease of calculation this breakdown assumes that SAJ, PJ and NR took over at the start of 2015, 2017 and 2025 which is not exactly a lot of violence to the facts. To be sure the shape of the chart depends essentially on the tax structure and given that all three PMs since 2006 have stuck with one that was unsustainable and overall very regressive it would not have made a big difference if the order of their stints was altered. It would still have been 20 years of extreme voodoo economics or if you prefer Shaitanomics.

The annual £90m we've apparently been contemplating to receive for the Chagos Islands will not matter that much even with the front-loading because it will be inconsequential compared to the ongoing damage caused by the ruinous tax structure. The current PM who wanted a fourth term so as to leave a legacy – it's atrociously negative after three just like PJ's is after eight years as PM – should have presented a budget at the end of last November or early December with a sustainable tax structure to dramatically slow down the fiscal rot and let Mauritius start being Mauritius again. This would have prevented the ST from increasing by about another Rs500 billion by the end of next month and NR's share of the mess to 20.4%. Add another half a trillion rupees till the close of 2025 if the June 5th budget keeps the same regressive and ruinous tax structure and see Ramgoolam's share of the ST rise to 26.2%. More if the new doses of voodoo economics in ADC's electoral manifesto are implemented.

Of course the Rs6 trillion ST translates into Rs1.2 trillion of revenue missing in the government coffers – which would have meant zero public debt right now plus Rs500 billion growing in a nice sovereign wealth fund if all we could have managed was the preservation of capital – assuming the latter accounts for a conservative 20% of national production and a private sector GDP shortfall of Rs4.8 trillion.

For sure the mile wide support the government received six months ago was only inch deep and that in many fields Mauritius has been in junk territory for many years. If common sense doesn't make a big comeback in a few weeks the risk that the social elastic will snap will keep on increasing from its already and unnecessarily very dangerous level.

Happy International Fact-checking Day!

Fact-checking is the lifeblood of democracies. So here's a mega transfusion for the Mauritian democracy.

Fact-checking Sithanen.

Fact-checking Subron.

Fact-checking Navin.

Fact-checking SAJ on a popular topic.

Fact-checking Pravind on the tram.

Fact-checking Arvin.

Fact-checking Berenger on two important issues.

Fact-checking playlist.

Fact-checking gem to download on your Apple device.

Ramgoolam Appoints Toxic Bean-Counter As BoM Governor

It came as a shock to people who had voted for the Alliance of Change as they haven't forgotten how Rama Sithanen had badly messed up their livelihoods during his last stint as Minister of Finance between 2005 and 2010 with an extreme version of trickle-down economics. It was so bad that he could not be given a ticket – a first for an outgoing FM – in GE2010 and didn't take the risk of running as an independent candidate. Of course before that the then PM had to give a second Presidential term to SAJ and help get PJ elected in the 2009 by-election to prove his goodwill before sealing an alliance with the MSM so as to avoid electoral mayhem. He was also not elected in GE2014 and GE2019 and that too in two different constituencies while for GE2024 the risk was too great for Ramgoolam to give him a chance to return to parliament.

The 70-year-old Sithanen has also made a number of disturbing statements. Here's one.

And here's some more.

No Electoral System Gives More Power to Voters Than the FPTP

Mauritius To Fully Reopen Borders At the Worst Possible Time

October 1 is not looking good. We’ve recently recorded some of the fastest growths in Covid cases in the world that has placed us on CDC’s list of very high infection risk. Deaths have also reached record levels and there is a very wide consensus that authorities are heavily underreporting them – less than half of the 160 covid deaths have been attributed to the virus including only 9% of the 11 people who died with the virus in the last three days. 

The ambient denial can be explained by the fact that the trickle-down economics pursued over the past fifteen years have delivered an economy that’s less than half the one expected. While the vaccination rate is above 60% it will not be enough to prevent the situation from worsening especially when we hear the reply of the President of the union of workers of the Ministry of Health when asked whether a patient is safe when she goes to hospital these days: “I’d rather not answer.”

Mauritians Say Goodbye To Their Longest-Serving PM

Two days of mourning to remember SAJ who has been PM of Mauritius for an incredible 19 years. He leaves behind a positive legacy essentially because he led Mauritius within the best electoral system in the world and a regime of progressive and sustainable taxation for most of the time he was in the driver seat. One of his most important contributions is without any doubt leading the effort to thwart an evil political plan in December 2014. His last fight was presenting in front of the ICJ for the Chagos. The 91-year-old will be cremated at the botanical garden in Pamplemousses in 10 minutes next to a colleague. 

Bizin Deklar Nu System Elektoral Kom En Trezor Nasyonal

The Only Thing Left For Ramgoolam to Do

He scrapped our progressive and sustainable taxation system in 2006 for an ultra-regressive flat tax which has almost bankrupted Mauritius and created massive inequality. 

He then tried to add a dose of proportional representation – worst thing for a Labourite to do – to our excellent FPTP system in 2014 which would have created chronic political instability and throw accountability away. Let’s not forget his wicked scheme of a semi-presidential system which would have added another big layer of problems at the top of the country. Just think of shop-till-drop AGF with more powers in 2018 or the tussle in 2012.  

Which makes him pretty much like one of the anti-independence PMSD people who also spewed out some very racist slogans like the one above (We don’t want Hindus!) in the run-up to the 1967 general election. While Mr. Ramgoolam hasn’t made any such statements yet he did tell a very derogatory story about Hindus (katora) during the 2019 general election which helped him lose the latter and his seat for the second straight time. So it would be a last natural and easy step for the 73-year-old plutocrat to end a disastrous political career. 

Mauritius Should Showcase the Sithanen Flat Tax Hell

We should make sure all 50-odd African countries are in attendance along with two university buddies. Then bring up the above table on the screen while a fresh round of gato-pima is served. And explain that by the end of last year Mauritius had about Rs1,800 billion of GDP missing compared to what the 8% growth the flat tax was supposed to generate – that’s 36 times how much GDP is roughly expected to fall this year from where it was at the end of 2019. If we assume a very conservative 20% cut for government revenue and the monies are left in a drawer (they are not reinvested) then there is more than Rs350bn of government revenue missing. This could have been placed in a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) that would have easily got us over the bump in the road that the pandemic is now creating. 

But we should have increased the share of government revenue to the OECD average of 35% as our population has been aging since 2005, to improve our welfare state and to bring back retirement age to 55 years so we mitigate our serious brain-drain problem. This would have boosted the SWF to Rs623bn. Even if we had grown at 6.5% over the past fourteen years there would have been between 195bn to 342bn rupees available to prepare us for any tough situation. Why is 5% in the table? It’s our average growth for the fourteen years – a period of progressive and sustainable taxation – before Sithanen started screwing up the economy and Mauritius big time. So even in this worst case scenario there would have been Rs58bn-Rs101bn of extra government revenue available for a bad year like 2020. Without compromising the independence of the BoM, destroying our savings culture and sending our rupee into a tailspin. 

Minister Padayachy has increased personal top tax rates to 40%. He had little choice. We don’t want to have a massive social crisis. 

Savings Likely to Hit At Least 60-year Low

It was there already in 2018 when it matched the 9% it reached after intense cyclone Danielle inflicted a 17.6% contraction to the Mauritian economy. As the table shows savings increased by a tiny bit last year but not enough to avoid the top three worst spots before COVID-19 arrived on the scene. We must also note that SSR is the only Prime Minister to have his two entries in the table linked to two intense cyclones. The other three PMs appear there because of two things. The first is the Sithanen flat tax which has broken the economy. The other is the removal of the tax exemptions which the people of Mauritius had been using to set up their long-term financial plans. 

The situation for Pravind Jugnauth is pretty worrying as all his three years as PM are very bad years for this fundamental statistic of economic resilience. Given that the figure for this year will likely go at the top of the table he should bring back some basic common sense by restoring a sustainable and progressive tax structure and personal deductions. This should start compensating for his extremely poor economic management of the past five years. 

Why Our Government Hasn’t Been Functioning Properly

Three words. Sithanen flat tax. As it never produced the higher growth rates (8%) our central government has been piling up so much debt – increasing from a total of Rs106bn to Rs278bn between 2005 and 2018 – that it had to resort to creative accounting, push up the debt ceiling several times and has failed to solve many national problems. The USD has also appreciated by one-third against our rupee over the past 15 years. Not a good sign. Definitely not what you’d expect from a Tiger. But pandemics have such a way of bringing back sanity. 

Did Trickle-down Economics Work in Mauritius?

Who’s Got the Best Road Safety Record?

At an average of 151 road fatalities per year in office – fraction of year in office greater than half is attributed the full year – Navin Ramgoolam has the worst record (see 1). Barely better is Pravind Jugnauth. Bérenger is roughly between SAJ and PJ. The best is SSR. He would have had about 178 fewer deaths than SAJ had his prime ministership been five years longer. The two Ramgoolams have stints in office of the same length but NR’s tally is 424 higher. This is rather bad given all the progress that has been made in the field of road safety for the past three decades. And we have to remember that personal computers were not as ubiquitous before 1982 as they’ve been for the past twenty years.

Chart 2 confirms how much we’ve fallen behind Singapore. While she has seen the total number of road deaths fall decade after decade Mauritius has seen her numbers increase by 40% in the second decade and literally stay flat for the next two. This has caused the gap between our totals to narrow substantially and it might even disappear by the end of next year. Which would be another source of embarrassment for us given that our population is about four and half times lower. But the next decade can be a lot better if we do two things. One is to ask candidates currently seeking our votes how they intend to bring these numbers down fast. The other is to assess the credibility of these plans. 

How Navin Narrowly Avoided Defeat in 2010

After bagging a historic victory in July 2005 – the first time one of the three big parties beat the other two – on the promise of democratising the economy and Putting People First, Ramgoolam’s second mandate rapidly turns into a nightmare. Rupee slides, rich made to pay the same low tax rate of the poor, our basic welfare state is tampered with, the savings culture is destroyed, doors are wide open to allow foreign investments to quash the dreams of thousands of Mauritians to become homeowners and unfair labour laws are passed. The situation is so bad that the then PM has to give another Presidential mandate to SAJ as well as help get the current PM elected before negotiating an alliance with the MSM. 

But the damage done by Sithanen and Mansoor is so large that Ramgoolam has no choice but to also dump the toxic bean-counter. Luckily for him the opposition makes a series of mistakes and this enables him to stay in power by winning 49.7% of the votes against 42% or as the chart shows by a margin of about 150,000 votes. Had Ramgoolam given Sithanen a ticket in 2010 he would probably have lost as the bean-counter would have set back his side by 100,000 votes. It’s no coincidence either that Berenger didn’t invite Sithanen to join his alliance. 

Flat Tax Hands 750,000 Mauritians Their Worst Share of National Cake

This is something the Gini coefficient won’t be able tell you but the above chart will. So yes, the bottom 60% of Mauritian households have been made more vulnerable by the Sithanen flat tax in the first decade following its implementation creating record inequality at the same time. They had their best shares of the last twenty-five years a quarter of a century ago. Plus we need to remember that since 2006 we’ve been producing some of our smallest national cakes ever thanks in large part to the damage done by the same unsustainable tax structure. Which means 750,000 of us got our smallest share of the tiniest of cakes. Not exactly what you’d call resilience. More on this later.

Piti Depas Papa

A la fin 2018 par Pravind Jugnauth (PJ) dan toohrooh Sithanen* ti 551 milyar rupi. Sa ve dir plis ki 125 milyar rupi par SAJ. Anfet par PJ ti osi depas rekordman ziska ler, Navin Ramgoolam (NR). PJ fin pran kat fwa edmi mwins letan ki NR parski zintere manz kapital apre en sertin letan si u pa fer seki bizin. PJ fin kontinye ek ban politik tre regresif ek insanse kin kontinye min enn lekonomi ki Sithanen fin tuye. Plis lor la biento.

*Toohrooh Sithanen se mank a gayne dan prodiksyon nasyonal konpare a en krwasans 8% ki Sithanen ti dir nu pu gayne ler li ti met flat tax 15%. Pu kon mank a gayne dan lakes guvernman u nek ena miltipliye toohrooh par pwa guvernman dan lekonomi. Dan mo ban kalkil mo abitye pran 20% bien ki pwa la zordi li 25%.

PJ Could Top Grim Table By Year-End

The one for ten years of biggest road fatalities. A word of caution though. In two years – 1995 and 2000 – there was a change of PM so the corresponding numbers don't entirely 'belong' to the PMs listed for them. We allocated the full year to the PM who was in office for more than half of the year.

PJ who is already in the list along with three former PMs – Bérenger's first entry of 144 for 2004 is at the 17th spot – is likely to see his number for 2018 go all the way to the top under three scenarios. The first two are if the last third of this year relative to the first two is like those for 2016 and 2014. The third if we extrapolate the total of 115 deaths reached at the end of August. Another entry might go in the middle of the table if 2018 is more like 2015. Of course all four entries would bump his entry for 2017 – his first year as PM – out of this ranking.

We haven't made good progress in road safety for way too long. And in the last thirteen years the economy-breaking Sithanen flat tax and other indecent fiscal exemptions have ensured that we didn't have enough money to bring road deaths down in a significant and persistent manner. Unlike say Singapore which has seen road fatalities decline in every one of the past ten years except two – here they have been increasing for each of the last three years with Bodha as Minister – reducing them literally by half. The type of tax structure you have determines the number of people who die on roads. So this makes the flat tax akin to a drone assassination programme. And exposes the absurdity of calls to transform the revenues of the dead sugar industry into a guaranteed fixed-deposit.

How To Calculate The Sithanen Toohrooh

I am writing this following a suggestion to talk a bit more on the infamous Sithanen toohrooh. A good idea given that it is the product of the worse thing that has happened to us after slavery: the Sithanen flat tax. I started posting about the toohrooh almost seven years ago. And I can't think of a better way than to explain how I estimated it. So people can play with the numbers and understand how we've been taken for a destructive ride.

Actually you need very little data to compute the toohrooh: real GDP growth and nominal GDP. That's it. These are in the 2nd and 3rd columns. We'll show the computations for 2006 but bear in mind your numbers may be slightly off because of rounding error. Nominal GDP growth is computed from nominal GDP numbers of adjacent years. For example the 11.52% is obtained from 213,444/191,393. Implied deflator is a measure of inflation and is the ratio of the nominal GDP growth to the real GDP growth. That is we got the 5.61% from 1.1152 / 1.056 – a more precise calculation than simply subtracting real GDP growth from nominal GDP growth.

Growth needed is the robust 8% real growth promised by Sithanen for slashing our already low taxes grossed up by the implied deflator. We have to do this because GDP and government revenue numbers are computed in nominal terms. So far so good? So growth needed for 2006 is 14.06% (1.08 x 1.0561). With the last number we can get the nominal GDP compatible with an 8% real growth rate. This turns out to be 218,295 or 14.06% higher than the 2005 number. This is 4.851 billions more than the actual nominal GDP of 213,444 and it produces close to a billion rupees of revenue shortfall for our government for 2006 alone if we assume a very conservative government revenue to GDP ratio of 20%.

The numbers for the other years are calculated in a similar fashion. And we've added two cumulative columns to show how the size of the toohrooh has been growing for the past 12 years. As you can see the toohrooh closed 2017 at Rs1.2 trillion and will grow by another Rs300bn this year. You will surely realise that the cumulative revenue shortfall at the end of 2015 was already about enough for Mauritius to get herself a heavy metro system not the junk that's bludgeoning the Promenade Roland Armand.

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