3 Places From Which Mansoor Has to Resign

Numero uno: Air Mauritius. He's part of the board that's responsible for a hedging mess that's going to dwarf the Rs4.76 billion that government has budgeted to spend on secondary and tertiary education this financial year.

The second place is as Financial Secretary. He has made a mess of Mauritius whichever way you look at it. We are a less competitive and more unequal country since he was handed the job by his university buddy in 2006. And after robust inflation with average growth of the past three years we're now going to get robust inflation with anemic growth with unemployment stuck in the double digits for all intents and purposes. And that's before the damning audit report.

And finally as Chairman of the Investment Committee of the National Pension Fund because he can't make the financial-markets-moving rules and head the country's largest pension fund at the same time. That's a conflict of interest.

Council Saying "All the Generals Should Be Shot"

Click on the image below to download the views of the National Economic and Social Council on the ongoing mess at our national airline.

Bigger Than the Madoff Scandal

Yeah. The STC hedging loss of Rs2.9 billion translates into about 1.1% of our GDP which stood at Rs263 billion at the end of 2008. That a percentage of the US economy would be worth about USD158 billion or if you prefer 3.16 times larger than the USD50 billion Madoff scam. Besides, the STC didn't have to do any oil hedging given that all price increases inclusive of the unfair 15% VAT are passed to us as have been the case for the past three and half years now. Which makes it all the more urgent and necessary to find out how this really happened and why.

We also have to find out precisely what led to the hedging mess at Air Mauritius which is the equivalent of almost 6 Madoffs. Explanations offered so far by both MK and its biggest shareholder have been far from satisfactory.

Labour Party's Easy Options

Here's what Ramgoolam can do to immediately make sure that he'll have to clear his Prime Minister's desk in 2010: present Rama Sithanen as his Minister of Finance again. Also, keeping him as Finance Minister until 2010 without announcing anything will be the equivalent of Navinchandra having to shoot himself in the foot a few times everyday. That could be quite painful for him given that the huge MK and STC bullets comfortably attended the National Prayer Service in Washington beneath his socks. Ouch!

Here's what he could have done two years ago to keep the odds of him staying in the top job for at least another mandate pretty high: 1) sack Rama Sithanen when the latter took the whole country hostage with his resignation-cum-blackmail charade for a whole week after having screwed up the country for 19 months and 2) deliver the kind of mediocre-but-not-toxic performance he did when he was around the first time.

Sacking Sithanen within a few hours of reading this post could certainly help to clear the political air a little bit but will not be enough. Ramgoolam still has to make an about turn in terms of economic policy. The good news is that that's fairly easy to do and he's got enough time to do it. The bad news is that he has surrounded himself with an impressive number of incompetent Judas. And the incompetent Judas will now do what incompetent Judas know best.

A Couple of Tips on How to Pick Your Date for Valentine's Day

The Case Against Oversimplification

The task to represent one's perception of the real world as succintly as possible is never easy. It is a balancing act that must explore grey areas and sort them into a distinct pattern of different pieces connected to each other. In its basic form it is about common sense, in its more elevated form it is about wisdom. All in all, it ought to be everybody's quest.

Alternatively, propaganda is a synthesis of selective information that is meant to capture emotions of the target audience and modify its perception. Propaganda machines master the art of disseminating appealing slogans to twist reality. Their approach is always binary and doctrinaire. Either/or and us/them.

That's why I tend to share the view of Tarun Tejpal, writer and editor of Tehelka:
"The real challenge is to present complex things as complex things, and to urge everyone to read them well and to come to terms with them".

My point is that we must not be put off by texts which seem too congested. We should give them a second and deeper look. Once the gist sinks in, we may or may not agree. Otherwise, we contribute to dumb ourselves down.

Ramgoolam's Invincible Candidate

That would be Rama Sithanen. I mean, here is a great opportunity to allow the voters of No. 8 to give back just a little bit of all the love he's been showering on the beautiful people of Mauritius for nearly four horrible years now. Besides, didn't he write in paragraph C of the rehashed version of the last June budget that his "reforms have saved the economy". And who says that Mauritians have lost their ability to recognise their saviour when they'll see him screaming atop a lorry? But first, he has to perform an extremely complicated task: resign.

Kozelidir's free guide to a successful ministerial resignation

1. Write a letter where you put down a good reason why you are resigning from parliament (shouldn't have too much trouble there: gosh, there are so many!!! Try this one: how I have been fooling Mauritians into paying too much for their petrol prices for the past 3 years!)

2. Drop the letter at Le Reduit. Don't drop it with the Deputy Prime Minister.

P.S: Help may be available to write an exhaustive letter as well with point no. 2.

Hedging Mess Could Exceed Rs10 Billion

If oil prices go where they seem to be going: $20 for a barrel or less. How did I get that huge number which is as big as our average capital budget -- announced but not actually spent -- of the past few bean-counting years? Well, I started by adding the Rs5.47 billion expected loss at MK with the Rs2.9 billion one at the State Trading Corporation (STC). That should give you Rs8.37 billion, right? Then I grossed up MK's loss by one third which is by about how much it should grow to if the distance I am expecting oil to travel over the next little while is indeed covered. So the number I get is Rs10.2 billion.

This is a conservative estimate because I haven't grossed up the STC loss. By the way, I am not buying that part -- there are other parts I'm not buying either -- of the last press conference of the PM that his finance minister didn't know about the hedging mess. Are you?

Vivement Maurinegra!

Noureddine Lakhmari est en passe de devenir un héros national au Maroc. Casanegra, le second long métrage du réalisateur engagé, a le profil du film culte. Le film est un portrait craché de la société avec ses contradictions, ses inhibitions, ses mensonges, ses hypocrisies etc. Casanegra se veut être une "thérapie de choc pour ouvrir les yeux des citoyens et secouer les certitudes ouatées dans lesquelles la propagande officielle tente de les enfermer".

Notre mouvement alternatif se met en place doucement certes, mais sûrement. Kozelidir on the run!

Drivel Bashing

Ouf! Une bouffée d'air frais dans L'Express d'aujourd'hui parmi une inflation de bêtises et de mensonges.

Girdar Toolsee, le directeur général de Beachwear, déclare que "le taux de change de la roupie par rapport à la livre sterling nous affecte, comme toutes les entreprises qui exportent vers la Grande-Bretagne. Mais ce n’est pas le seul facteur de ralentissement des activités dans notre secteur. Au risque de contredire les autres exportateurs, je dirai qu’il faut cesser de dramatiser la situation. Quand la livre sterling s’échangeait contre plus de Rs 65, nous les exportateurs en avions tous profité, tandis que cette situation pénalisait d’autres. Aujourd’hui que la livre sterling a baissé, cela affecte certes, nos recettes. Mais c’est normal, c’est le marché. On ne peut pas gagner tous les jours. Nous espérons que la livre sterling remontera très vite, mais nous ne devons tenir personne pour responsable de la situation actuelle. Nous ne pouvons que l’accepter et redoubler d’effort. Demain cela ira mieux. La compétitivité ne peut pas être arrimée uniquement au taux de change. En étant design oriented, entre autres, nous pouvons amoindrir les difficultés de change et imposer nos prix. Les moments difficiles ont souvent du bon : ils nous permettent de nous remettre en cause, de nettoyer pour pouvoir repartir du bon pied. Comme je l’ai dit, nous devons redoubler d’effort. Les problèmes ne doivent pas nous arrêter."

Le drame c'est que de tels entrepreneurs existent par centaines à Maurice mais ce sont toujours les néo-colonisateurs qui sont médiatisés et qui finissent par imposer leur agenda nombriliste! Cela ne dédouane en aucun cas nos gouvernements successifs par rapport à leur incapacité à fluidifier le système national.

Did You Say Cathay Pacific?

And that was supposed to put some perspective into the hedging mess at MK. Bad move. That's because unrealised losses of Air Mauritius through 2010 are estimated at Rs5.47 billion (EUR 129.5m) or some 64.4% of its shareholders' equity of Rs 8.49 billion (EUR 201m) whereas the paper losses for Cathay Pacific are Rs31.66 billion (USD 980m) on shareholders' funds of a little less than Rs213 billion. In other words the paper loss for Cathay barely represents 15% of its equity.

More importantly, these unrealised losses can be easily met by the strong balance sheet of the Hong-Kong-based airline which at Dec 31, 2007 stood at close to half a trillion rupees. No, they won't be seeking support from the authorities.

You may also wish to know that Cathay had 159 planes vs. 12 for MK and that it transported over 23 million people in 2007 compared to the 1.3 million for Air Mauritius. Finally its depressed market capitalisation was close to Rs150 billion a couple of weeks ago or about 300 times that of MK's.

After Passing Controversial Laws that Make Firing Brutally Easy Minister Will Now Give Money for Not Laying Off People

That's the cosmetic response of our national bean-counter to a faltering economy he's been painstakingly screwing up since he returned as Finance Minister three and half years ago. And you can expect more about-faces like this as it becomes increasingly clear that an overwhelming number of Mauritians will vote ar zot lipye in ridings such as No. 18 in the next polls.

World Could Soon Love America Again

If Barack Obama, who today signed the executive orders to have Guantanamo Prison closed within the next twelve months, makes good on a few other of his electoral pledges.

And don't be surprised to soon see something imaginable before last Nov 4th: America happily playing their favourite sport against the country which actually plays it better than them in Havana with Fidel Castro and Obama exchanging some good jokes about past diplomatic relations or lack thereof between their two countries. That would certainly bring back happy memories of a Pierre Trudeau laughing with the same Castro about accusations that he smuggled arms into Cuba on his kayak.

Nicky Tan Needs to Be Brought Back

I mean if we paid him Rs70 million to investigate a fraud of less than Rs1 billion, shouldn't we bring him back to investigate the multi-billion blunders at both the STC and MK? I am sure we could get a hefty discount per billion squandered investigated especially if we get our top negotiators involved.

Maybe, maybe not. But at least a fact-finding committee should be instituted at each one of these corporations to find out what really happened. And I think we can count on the magnificent statesmanship Navin Ramgoolam has shown throughout his prime ministership for this to happen with lightning speed. After all it's no secret that he likes speed, isn't it? And he did promise before July 3rd, 2005 that he would bring NTan to wrap up some unfinished business.

Mauritian Banks Survived Financial Meltdown Because of Their Lack of Sophistication

Mortgages here unlike in the US are not securitized (banks selling them to intermediaries which repackage them into instruments of varying risks for institutional investors). And they are not securitized because our financial system is relatively primitive, a lot of players don't give two hoots about satisfying client needs and are instead busy abusing them in more ways than one. Our laws also need to be modified to allow this activity.

Hmm... Maybe not as long as political idiots keep on nominating incompetent people in positions of huge responsibility who don't even know that a government guarantee is the best loan you can get.

Pro-Growth Propaganda: The Making of

Here's an enlightening excerpt from Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered, written by Ernst Friedrich Schumacher and first published in 1973:

Can such a system conceivably deal with the problems we are now having to face? The answer is self-evident: greed and envy demand continuous and limitless economic growth of a material kind, without proper regard for conservation, and this type of growth cannot possibly fit into a finite environment. We must therefore study the essential nature of the private enterprise system and the possibilities of evolving an alternative system which might fit the new situation.

Microcosmos

If you want to get a taste of how Dodoland operates, MK will provide you with lots of tips. To dig even deeper, you may also try to decipher the features that make the UOM and the MBC so Dodolandish.

Top 10 Reasons Why Solutions to 95% of Our Problems Are Not Domestic

No. 10. More reasonable electricity prices have been promised by Navin Ramgoolam for more than a year now. You should blame Mick Jagger if you've been waiting for Godot.

No. 9. Oil prices at the pumps remain high and are killing our economy to finance the reverse Robinhoodness of the flat-tax duet. Not really. It's Deepika Padukone's fault.

No. 8. More than a third of the students who fail the CPE do so because the exam is way too difficult. That of course is U2's Bono's fault who's been dishing out one great song after the other and disturbing our kids.

No. 7. Record FDI pouring into the country since 2006 should have made everybody richer through an appreciating currency had our national bean-counter along with the then Governor not been in a hurry to create double-digit inflation. Just kidding. If our currency crashed in the second half of 2006 it's because Scorpion Queen Khun Kanchana didn't hold the little darlings in her mouth long enough.

No. 6. The controversial reintroduction of the daylight saving time was imposed on us by Bernard Madoff.

No. 5. We have to blame Aung San Suu Kyi for staying too long at home if Sithanen did not anchor our inflation expectations by not providing the Bank of Mauritius and hence the country with a target range for inflation as required by the law between 2005 and 2010.

No. 4. Navin Ramgoolam has been PM for close to 9 years and our traffic problems haven't improved. Far from that. Nah, it's because Paris Hilton hasn't been partying hard enough!

No. 3. If Air Mauritius is technically bankrupt it's not because we have an incompetent bunch managing it. No way. It's because Hillary didn't win the Democratic Party's ticket in the last US President election.

No. 2. It is very easy to establish a link between the fact that we don't have a sufficiently comfortable public transportation system and the number of Asian lions that were born in 1859.

And the No. 1 reason why solutions to 95% of our problems are not domestic is

No. 1. People lost their lives in flash floods in the same week that water stoppages were in force in 2008. That of course is because the snow atop Mt. Kilimanjaro melted earlier than usual.

Oil Prices Should Come Down Immediately by 25%

From its current level of Rs 34.10 a litre. That would bring it to about Rs 25 a litre which would be closer to real prices. The recent modification of the APM formula from 20% quarterly variations to 7.5% monthly variations is the latest of a series of intellectually dishonest arrows that Sithanen has been retrieving from his bean-counting quiver. It is a device to prevent Mauritian voters from immediately benefiting from the collapse in oil prices so that his ability to fleece us with a 15% VAT remains unchecked. 

That's kind of stupid because energy is an important building block of our competitiveness. In fact, he should have capped the amount of money government makes when oil prices went through the roof between July 2005 to July 2008 and rapidly reduce pump prices when oil prices collapsed thereafter. Of course that's way too much to ask from a bean-counter. He preferred instead to viciously tax us to death when oil prices skyrocketed and come up with a little contraption to keep them artificially high when the latter crashed.

MMM Should Find Platform Other Than Skin of Its Leader

Or face mayhem in the next general elections. Berenger got thrown out of office in 2005 because he delivered the worst performance by any of the Prime Ministers we've been electing since 1968 after a majority of voters thought that nobody could do worse than Ramgoolam at the end of his mandate in 2000.

Ramgoolam got back in again in 2005 because Mauritius kind of decided that his mediocre performance as PM the first time around was after all not as debilitating as Berenger's. That was before Sithanen seriously messed up our resilience and literally wiped out five years from the kind of future the people who built this country had envisioned.

It's time for Berenger to take a back seat and rebuild the MMM. A good starting point would be to appoint Lutchmenaraidoo as his successor. Now.