Selecao Ends Winning Streak of Mannschaft in Berlin

With a header from Jesus. The player. The Canarinhos were looking a lot better on Tuesday night unlike the thumping they received in Belo Horizonte four years ago when they conceded five goals in nineteen minutes. This time they were pressing non-stop, marking every German player and the front players were systematically going back to beef up the defence. Definitely a pleasant match to watch.

The 32 teams participating in the World Cup in Russia will keep on fine-tuning their games in a number of friendlies between May 18 and June 13 or one day before the big show starts. Germany may meet Brazil as soon as the group stage ends if both teams qualify for the knockout rounds but one of them doesn't come out on top.

Road Fatalities in Singapore Fall By 13.5%

In 2017. It was the sixth consecutive year that the number of people dying on the roads there was smaller than the previous one. It's been falling so much that it reached a 37-year low. In fact so much progress has been made in the city-state that more people have been dying on Mauritian koltar for two straight years although Singapore has about four and half times more people.

With one road fatality every 48 hours here since the beginning of year you not only have to expect the Southeast Asian Tiger to have fewer road fatalities for a third year in a row – they had 22 for the first two months of 2018 – but more worrying is that if the remaining nine months are going to be like the first three we should be hitting a 39-year high with about 183 deaths. This would come after four straight years of increase in road fatalities.

Until a few years back the chart above might have been branded unfair to Singapore because of its much larger population. Not anymore after smart policy-makers have understood that recent improvements in policy tools make it possible to save a lot more lives. And that too a lot faster. At a minimum we could drastically increase the number of random and not so random breath tests when and where it matters most. This would not be the stupidest idea we've ever had and make ansam pa les koltar tuy nu fami ring a bit less hollow than having the SMF help destroy Promenade Roland Armand for a tram which is not going to be there for long.

PM May Need A New Communications Team

Can you believe this? Ok, it's true there has been a policy breakdown for a while now. Still...

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.

On dit merci qui?

Choice in 2019 Not Between Pravind and Navin

As Ramgoolam has framed the issue. Where our country is right now there's little else we can do than to vote for 60 good candidates and then see what happens. People are less shy about voting for smaller parties now. We saw that recently in the by-election in Belle-Rose – Quatre-Bornes last December. For the first time it took the vote shares of six candidates to reach 90% of the votes casted. Until now all you had to do to get nine-tenths of the votes in a by-election was to add the votes of the top two or three candidates. This is a tectonic shift. That too after voters expressed their feelings about the wicked scheme of three politicians in December 2014.

Ramgoolam is a neoliberal who doesn't give two hoots about Mauritius. We've seen this in his last two mandates. Maybe the 70-year old politician considers Mauritius as a piece of disposable paper. Or something that shouldn't exist after he breathes his last. All that he looks able of dreaming for our country is a bigger safe and carte blanche to that Paglanomist to sink our nation further.

Pravind is not any better. He's a neoliberal too and has been slashing taxes which will speed up the rotting process. As for the MMM the best it can hope is to sign an 'akor a la palestinyenn' as minority partner with Parti Malin.

Can't wait to see us voters flush the ML whose leader – one of our worst ministers ever – found bliss when he looked in the eyes of an Angolan.

Fakim Digs Heels In, Sues Barclays For Half A Billion Rupees

Not only she didn't resign as PJ had announced but the President has made a couple of fast moves. The first one is to sue Barclays Bank for Rs500m. Fair enough, statements of her infamous credit card were printed in a daily. We learned today that she has instituted a Commission of Inquiry to essentially investigate how Sobrinho got his licences and if she had not behaved properly.

It feels kind of strange for Fakim to ask for a commission to investigate her. What is even weirder is that a President is empowered to appoint a Commission of Inquiry into "any matter of public interest or concern, or into any matter in which an inquiry would be for the public welfare" [see Paragraph 2.2]. Then why didn't she ask for one on the Metro Express and another one on the completely stupid and unpatriotic plan of Collendavelloo to privatise water? Should we also mention that the National Assembly can advise her to revoke the Commission she just appointed [see Paragraph 3.4]?

All eyes are now on the Prime Minister who may use article 30 of our Constitution to institute a tribunal to investigate AGF and suspend her in the meantime with the support of the opposition. 

Hawking Lives 50 Years More Than Expected

He was given a few years after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. Ended up doing a lot of important work including popularising science.

50 Years Ago, A Magical Moment

Ipipip! Wai!

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.

Bizin Gard Sa Bug La Andeor Parlman Ankor Sink An

Li promye lider travayis ki pur PR. Be se normal li pur parski li pa enn travayis. Li enn neoliberal. Akoz sa mem so guvernman finn vinn ek enn flat tax ki zafer pli retrograd kinn ariv moris apard lesklavaz.

Ki sa fu ki finn ena 7 rapor lor reform elektoral. Dernye rapor la twa kinn ekrir? Tonn fer resers? Ah bon? Kuma tonn fer sa resers la? Ek Sithanen dan to godi?

Pa sa ve dir nu revot sa bann faner ki pe diriz nu la. Non. Nu rod 62 kandida serye nu vote lane prosen.

Go Ahead, Show Your True Colours

Friday Earworm

Ase Fer Bandar

Sinon nu pu fini kuma Banda Aceh. 

A More Relevant Talk By Malene Rydahl

Than the one I bumped into. I wonder if she has been briefed about what has been going on in Mauritius for more than a decade now. For sure Denmark does a lot of things right. But the 'happiest' people on Earth don't have the lowest suicide rate in the world. Good points to take from this presentation. It will remind you a bit of Ken.

Sithanen Toohrooh To Increase By Over Rs300 Billion in 2018

That's based on the 8% growth he promised back in 2006 before flattening our tax structure. We never got the 8% in any of the 12 years since he started breaking the economy with so much dedication. In fact we didn't get half of that rate in eight of these years and we haven't clocked 4% in the last seven consecutive years. It's true that he had also promised to make poverty history by 2015 back in 2007 only to recently push back this date to 2026 or 2031. I know people who have started to believe in astrology after listening to his forecasts. Mind you that was before he predicted a 60-0 for the general elections of December 2014.

300 billions is our GDP for the whole of 2010. That's the equivalent of 15 Lepep Trams or very roughly two $5bn Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) systems – the heavy-duty underground. Given that the toohrooh was Rs1.2tn at the end of 2017 it will therefore hit a trillion-and-half rupees before we welcome an election year.

After Navin Leaves

The party which turns 82 today will have to go back and have a good look at its glorious past. Especially the one which ended in June 1982. The one which played the biggest role in improving the lot of the many by rolling out our welfare state. The party which was the driving force behind the independence movement. The one who proved Meade wrong. The great party who was against proportional representation and party lists. Or double candidacies.

But don't count on Arvin to do that. He's no different from Navin who not only actively revised the history of the LP when he was in power but invents new Party DNA when he's not. The LP might not be able to do this for some time. That's OK as voters are becoming increasingly sophisticated and they will eventually get what Mauritius needs.

Two Nobels Were Not Mistaken About Mauritius

Kot zot pu kav vo nu bann dirizan sa!

Camille Moutoo at a SELEX dinner

Certainly not James Meade who submitted his famous 1960 facts-based report a few months after visiting Mauritius. Incidentally he landed here exactly eight years before 12.3.68 and about ten days after a pretty little thing called Carol had spent five days checking us out. Start to read the clear report and it won't take you long to appreciate – if you'd been led to believe otherwise – how bad a hand we had been dealt five decades ago. You might even then be able to connect the dots and understand that he and his team were proved wrong by a group of exceptional men and women who saw far and loved this land of ours like nobody did since.

Likewise Vidia – the V in V.S. Naipaul – made some really sharp observations about Mauritius. The kind of insights that would make the day of any policy wonk whether it was in 1973 or forty-five years later. Don't like it too much that he called us an Overcrowded Barracoon? Well, we had one of the highest population densities in the world back then – we still do sitting at no. 007 – and you've surely not forgotten what are the two things Malcolm said we grow here. As a matter of fact it would be far too generous a compliment if someone used these two words to describe us today. Given how much we've regressed.

And then there is Stiglitz who found that everything was going on swimmingly in our island. His 2011 visit occurred a few years after a toxic bean-counter had done extensive damage to our economy and to the lives of thousands with his flat tax and reverse Midas touch. The massive irony of course is that Joe was part of the successful economic team of Bill Clinton who had reversed the harmful tax cuts of a bunch of Voodoo economists led by one Ronald Reagan and the first Bush President – this had caused US debt to balloon from $1tn to $4tn in twelve short years.

The least he could have done was to share his experience and recommend that we make an economic about turn. After all the Sithanen toohrooh had grown to Rs116bn by the end of 2010. A huge amount roughly equal to our GDP for the last six months of 2006 but only one tenth of the level it reached last December. But he didn't preferring to put his foot in his mouth and spraying us with excessive doses of flattery. I don't think this made him gain any new fans among those who had raised at least one eyebrow when he got that prize – which is as old as our independence – from the Swedish central bank.

MMM Siyn Enn Gran Lakor Elektoral

Pu eleksyon zeneral le 13 Septam 2024. Wi, MMM pu al ansam ek Party Malin dan enn lakor a la Palestinyenn dan lintere siperyer Moris. An efe, lider Party Malin finn anons sa a so promye konferans de pres trimestryel pu lane 2020 ansam ek lider MMM. Lider Party Malin pu PM pandan 4 an ek 51 semen ek lider MMM pu PM pandan leres letan. Lider MMM sir zot pu gayn tu bann siez – sirtu apre depar tu bann fos vre militan ek bann vre fos aktivis depi dan MMM – ek sa pu permet zot al de lavan ek zot proze fer Lil Morist vinn enn pei far.

Dimunn pa pe tro konpran kifir lider MMM pe kontan kumsa parski MMM inn gayn zis enn tiket ek enn pos kuma PPS dan enn evantyel guvernman PM-MMM. Bon se vre ki apre sa gro tranbleman de ter dan dernye eleksyon zeneral – elekter ti vot zis bann bon kandida ek ti donn bann seki gayn enn move bagratel enn kontra afermaz 99 banane dan karo kan – li paret ki MMM inn gayn enn ase bon deal. Par kont dimunn pe dimann zot si pe apel sa enn lakor Palestinyenn parski tu le de ti met enn keffiyeh.

Lider MMM finn avwe ki bann negosyasyon pa ti fasil. Inn pran lider Party Malin ek li trwa mwa pu resi tom dakor. Obstak prinsipal sete partaz post siprem. Lider MMM ti kumans propoz vinn PM pandan enn mwa me lider Party Malin ti pe dakor zis pu enn demi-zurne. Lider MMM finn salye zenerosite ek patriotism lider Party Malin.

Zis pu riye sa. Si u pa ti fini konpran.

Lepep Tram Unlikely Biggest Project Ever

Kind of obvious if you have listened carefully to some of the numbers used by Minister Bodha on the same day George Chung deemed that the controversial tram project was basically riskless. As you might not have the figures mentioned six months ago to show the savings over two projects – not exactly the same ones – that were initially promoted by the Labour Party are copied in the table below. 

Given that the road decongestion program (RDP) will spend about Rs3 billion every year for a handful of years and that it will not be the first time nor the last that billions will be wasted to fight the traffic Frankenstein – which is growing bigger thanks to policy-making which is very clumsy – it shouldn't take long before you hear Mr. Bodha's successors announce that the RDP has overtaken the tram project.

The thing is that these unnecessary projects – which constitute the silly response to problems caused by a growth in the car pool which has been left unchecked for way too long – will not only make Mauritius weaker but will also make her uglier. It will make her weaker because as Intel has reminded us a car stays idle over 90% of the time and that hardly makes it a productive investment. Especially when you consider all the other problems of having too many of them. This explains why Singapore has been shrinking her number of cars to levels not seen in eight years. Mind you we're talking here about a country which has nine people to every car and a GDP per capita more than five times ours. Here we have like six people to every car and foolishly think that we can handle more. And that too when heavy road-users already describe several parts of our road network as an overcrowded barracoon.

These projects will definitely make Mauritius less attractive. Just ask any of the 270 trees of the Promenade Roland Armand. That's too heavy a price to pay for things that don't qualify as smart development especially when we know that the Bus Rapid Transit is a much better alternative that will immediately bring much-needed relief to road users. We should also start to act as a middle-income country – and soon a fifty-year old – by protecting our world-famous views. Just like London has been doing for more than a century. Which explains why the Leadenhall Building had to be built like a cheese-grater.

The least Pravind Jugnauth can do is to organise a referendum on such an important national issue. Making good on one electoral pledge will not only deepen our democracy it will also help avoid total political disaster in the next general election.