Monday, June 27, 2016

Why Mauritius Need Not Worry About Brexit

Because we got far more important issues here to worry about. Here are a few.

1. A Minister wants to sell the CWA because he's not happy with its hotline. Now, if this is not a cause for worry and a reason for ministerial resignation, an urgent Cabinet reshuffle, a referendum or all three I wonder what is. Another Minister wants to sell the CHCL. That's totally inappropriate. Talks with DP World have to be immediately called off. We can keep on nicely developing our port by ourselves -- CHCL has invested nearly Rs2 billion over the last ten years. We've got the people and tons of unemployed graduates who should be given many opportunities to push Mauritius forward. For sure we could have done a lot better had Sithanen not messed up our savings rate and economy so badly with the impressive string of failed policies which have accompanied the worst form of trickle-down economics: a flat tax. See, he promised robust growth rates of 8% back in 2005 if we lowered top taxes. As the chart illustrates we not only never got anything higher than 6% during the past 10 years but 60% of those rates were under 4%. This has, as expected, caused our government to run out of money for capital projects -- which Badhain keeps repeating -- and pile up a lot of debt. Making us a lot more vulnerable at the same time.


Naturally this leaves Pravind Jugnauth with a wonderful opportunity -- just like he did in 2010 -- to bring some sanity back to tax rates when he reads the budget in a few weeks. Which can help avoid a near 60-0 defeat in about two years.