Eski Plant Plis Kan Se En Bon Stratezi Pu Moris?

Where Main Parties Stood When We Voted in November 2019

The three main blocks were very similar at the time. Lalit was right on all but one major issues.

How to Burn Billions

Can’t Find Referendum in Electoral Manifestos

Searched for the word in the manifestos of the three main political blocks but didn’t find it. It’s not in the 15 key measures of the MSM/ML alliance although it was there in the social contract of the Lepep Alliance in 2014 when there were only 12 key measures. That’s a pretty bad sign when you add surveillance state and the flat tax.

What was not difficult to find was the French word for sugar. It popped up fast at least a few times in each one of them. So these three parties will keep us mired in a low-growth trap for the next few years if we vote for them. We don’t have to. 

Bérenger Says He’s the Real Miracle Man

And not Lutchmeenaraidoo because he did all the work after the 60-0 in 1982. This is another funny statement from him because he was Minister of Finance for only nine months and if you read Cuttaree’s Behind The Purple Curtain you can’t fail to notice that about the only thing they were busy doing until March 1983 was fighting each other inside the alliance. This of course leaves even less time to do good work. Furthermore if a neophyte in 1982 can create an ‘economic miracle’ with one budget surely he will be able to do at least as well if he ever returned as Finance Minister later.

The trouble for Bérenger is that he did return as Finance Minister in 2000 and got the chance to present not one but three budgets. And what did Cuttaree have to say about the state of the economy after those budgets? Something very interesting: “Nous sommes en urgence économique. La situation est sans précédent.” It was a period in which almost twenty-three thousands jobs were lost in one industry alone in a few years. Mr. Bérenger of course described the situation differently dubbing Mauritius the best managed country in the world. What else to expect from a party with more than a little penchant for self-aggrandisement?

Knowledge about the economy is not something that the MMM seemed to have got better at since. Reza Uteem, their shadow Finance Minister, was heard a couple of years ago on a radio saying that the offshore sector needs a stimulus package. The MMM has also set saving the dead sugar industry as a top priority in its electoral manifesto. It doesn’t do well on other important national issues either. 

One Way Lalit is Different From Mainstream Parties

It doesn’t want to bail out the sugar industry while the LP, MMM and the MSM do. Rezistans ek Alternativ too wants save to this old industry. So who’s right?

Another Pope, Another Mauritius

When he visits us tomorrow, Francis will find a Mauritius that’s very different from the one that greeted the most travelled Pope ever, John Paul II, thirty years ago. As the chart shows we’ve regressed in all but two ways. The cake produced over the four years before Monday’s trip (cake increase) is almost two-and-a-half times smaller, savings have collapsed, rupee has lost more than half of its value, road fatalities over the last four years are about a quarter higher and unemployment two times bigger. Inequality has also increased substantially. More on this later. 

Many of the problems we’re facing can be traced back to the 15% flat tax which has placed public finances in a critical position. Indeed at the end of 2018 there was Rs1.5tn of GDP missing which should have generated Rs300bn of revenue for our government. This would have made the latter debt-free. No wonder then that there’s plenty of signs we’re in big trouble the latest being that more than 50% of the vehicles at our fire stations and pumps don’t work. This shouldn’t be a surprise for Francis who has stated publicly several times that trickle-down doesn’t work. Let’s see what he says while he’s here. 

For Good Cup of Tea After Good Cup of Tea

Stopped using Bois-Cheri vanilla tea bags soon after I had one cup of Freshpak’s rooibos tea. That was years ago. It has a strength and consistency in taste I didn’t find in the local brand. I use my phone’s timer to steep it in fresh boiling water for exactly two minutes and then add some milk but no sugar. Great habit to skip sugar in tea as we drink several hundreds cups in a year. Have made quite a few friends try it. Most if not everyone of them have switched. 

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.

An 2007 Ti Deza Evidan Ki Kann Pena Lavenir

Ek mem avan. Aster an 2018 vomye pa koze.

Non Arvin, Kann Se Pa Nu Serengeti

Non, non, non. Kann se pa nu Serengeti. Li dan Serengeti. Mo fek truv li. Alalila.

Tiger @50

Did that super fast today. So basically we defused the demographic bomb, diversified our economy and became a Republic. We did a terrific job planning and implementing things at least between 1968-82. We should be thankful to our excellent constitution and FPTP system which have provided the stability necessary to have a fair chance of being a lot more than a country without a future.

Things have deteriorated significantly as from 2005 when a flat tax was introduced using three lies. This has caused everything to slow down and attracted the wrong FDI and people. Poverty and inequality have increased tremendously. The other big risk we're facing now is that there are attempts to turn our Republic into an autocracy with undemocratic devices such as a second republic, party lists and double candidacies.

Let's take our beautiful country back!

P.S. Click on the pic to see it better. Consider it as work in progress. And please note that the 30% for sugar in 1968 is an estimate.

Arvin Fares Very Poorly On Labour DNA

Let's consider three core values of the Labour Party which have helped produced extraordinary results specially between 1968-82.

1. The use of an excellent constitution and the FPTP system. He is for proportional presentation (PR) which is something the LP has always been against. Arvin was also very quiet in 2014 when the MMM and the LP tried to transform Mauritius into a banana republic. Not taking a stand did not prevent him from seeing a 6-term winning streak in riding no. 11 come to an end. Besides our FPTP system has provided us with stable government after government. Something which is less likely to prevail with another dose of PR. Ask Rodrigues and Angela Merkel.

2. Progressive taxation. He is for low-taxes. Boolell doesn't seem to understand the difference between low and progressive taxes like they were before Sithanen messed them up and the 15% flat tax. The latter had already caused a GDP gap of over a trillion rupees -- that's 1,000 billions -- by the end of last April. And record inequality. It's also kind of contradictory for him to say that trickle-down economics doesn't work and at the same time be for it.

3. Building strong teams. While he mentions currency depreciation as one of the failings of the Lepep government one might believe that if he was given the chance he would appoint a progressive Governor at the BoM. But he seems to like the sugar industry way too much. A very regressive attitude. He penned an article recently where he asked for help for that sunset industry. There is only so much government can do. If it is going to throw money after a dead industry how will it roll back problems like the lack of opportunities for our youth and tackle other national priorities? And this will in no way put Mauritius in a position to have a stronger currency which is a great wealth lever.

Overall Mr. Boolell seems to have little in common with the kind of values of the Labour Party that have produced legendary results. The funny part is that he is trying to get elected in riding no.18 on the strength of past acheivements of the Labour Party. Voters are no fool.

Redesign of Coat of Arms Overdue

Seriously Mauritius. A dead and lazy bird on the left. An imported animal on the right. Both dressed in colonial tailcoats. A dead industry in the middle. A boat that we haven't used to go to work for at least a week. Hopefully it's not one of those boats that was involved in large-scale human trafficking. 3 palm trees. A key that will now be appropriate only when our independent country turns 52. And a star (mullet argent). Plus the 200-plus-year old reason why the British seized the island: Star and Key of the Indian Ocean. That was before the birth of the Wright brothers and Santos Dumont.

This beauty was apparently designed in 1906 by Johann Van Der Puf, the Mayor of Johannesburg. Might have been relevant then. But is definitely not now. We should organise a design competition. To get rid of this embarrassment.

3 Reasons We Are Not a High-income Country

The first one is land use. If we removed all the sugar and replaced it with what we have elsewhere our GDP per capita at the end of 2015 would have increased by 48.5% to $13,575. And given us access to the high-income club.

The next reason is currency policy. If we had kept our currency fixed at its 1985 level of 15.58 rupees to the USD -- not a lot to ask from a Tiger as the majestic cats have been known to increase their exports while their currencies appreciate -- our GDP per capita would have been 2.25X larger. That is it would have climbed to $20,608.

The final reason is the devastating effect of the 15% flat tax. If we had clocked the average 8% growth rates promised since 2005 our output per capita would have shot up to $13,136 in 2015. Or about 44% higher. Which is by the way roughly how much the crazy land use has cost us. And gives us precious information to assess relatively recent policies.

Finally if we had no sugar cane, had been very reasonable with our currency and had clipped the robust 8% growth our GDP per capita would have been $43,971 or 4.81X bigger than where it was at Christmas time in 2015. This of course would have been 83% of the corresponding number for a famous South-East Asian Tiger.

Miow.

RIP Sugar

It's heading there. Less than 1% of GDP now and declining further. It would already have been dead if so much good money had not been thrown after its bad situation. And if it was not for the completely silly policy of competitive depreciation. I heard Krepalloo Sunghoon mention that it costs Rs17,000 to produce one ton of sugar that now sell for less than Rs15,000. How much bigger would the loss be at the very reasonable rate of 25 rupees to a dollar? No wonder then that thousands of acres of sugar cane have been abandoned. But that's kind of natural. We can't pursue activities that are incompatible with the kind of money that is needed to live properly here. Unless if we want to allow modern forms of slavery like too many seasonal workers and God knows what else. Just like we use cars and buses to go to work. And not horses.

We should use the land under sugar cane to grow food and to create more productive opportunities for our unemployed youth. So that we move Mauritius forward.

How Mauritius Can Increase Its GDP By 50%

Remove all sugar cane and replace it with the kind of stuff we have on the other two-thirds of our land area. That would boost our GDP – and the per capita number as shown in the above chart – by almost half. And get us out of the middle-income group after being trapped there for almost three decades.

No, no, no you say. Sugar has a bright future. Really? Then let's raze all of our towns and grow sugar cane and shrink GDP by 98% or USD11.8bn. That would collapse our GDP per capita to $283 or a level close to that of South Sudan – a country which has been in civil war since 2013. We'd probably experience the same thing if we reverted back to being a mono crop. It'd take a less extreme scenario to have people in the streets. That's for sure. 

Cyclones Pose New Risks to Mauritius

Gone are the days when an intense cyclone like Claudette would shrink our GDP by about 8%. That's because four decades later sugar weighs about nineteen times less in our economy. The risk now is being visited by a series of cyclones in a much shorter period of time. We will have a lot more flooding so we need to prepare for this with drains that are not built to accommodate the rainwater of one large cyclone in a month but like three of different sizes in three weeks or less. Contingency plans will therefore have to be carefully updated. So should our relationship with fellow creatures.

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.

Kozelidir Quiz [1]

The above chart shows the weight of sugar in our economy over the last 39 years. Can you identify the three events?