Mauritius Doesn't Need the Metro Express to Go Bankrupt

Because the Sithanen flat tax has been taking care of that. In quite a splendid manner actually. As we've pointed out recently the associated toohrooh has already reached a trillion rupees. Which is equivalent to several years of GDP. Anybody who has studied up to at least Form III understands that continually growing at less than 4% -- that too in depreciated rupee terms -- instead of the 8% you promised will land you in very deep trouble pretty quickly.

We've seen our PM make a surprising visit to India before presenting his budget. The implementation rate in the public sector has slowed down. If the Metro Leger has been replaced by a watered-down version it's not because we have so much money that we don't know what to do with it. A special purpose vehicle has appeared and the debt ceiling will be amended. What do all these signs tell us?

Sithanen Toohrooh Crosses Trillion-Rupee Threshold

This happened at the end of April. Yep, a trillion rupees of GDP is missing with respect to Dr. bean-counter's forecast of average growth of 8% after mindlessly slashing top tax rates to 15%. That's like our GDP for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 combined. 6 years of GDP. Or roughly those of 2011, 2012 and 2013 put together. So it's been a failure of epic proportions. Nothing has hurt Mauritius as much as the Sithanen flat tax. Absolutely nothing. No natural calamity has done this kind of damage. And boy did we have calamities in the last 50-60 years. Because nothing has shaved off more than four percentage points off the target growth rate six years in a row. As a comparison the consolidation we saw in the textile industry -- especially in 2003 and 2004 -- cut down growth by only 2% and that too in only one year. Let us also not forget the extra 22,000 Mauritians that were thrown into poverty over the first five years of the fake reforms. #prayforzanzibar.

One and Twelve Zeroes

1,000,000,000,000 rupees is not exactly the smallest number you'll encounter today. That's 257 times what the sugar industry is expected to contribute to our economy this year. No typos here. Two hundred and fifty seven times. Or if you want about USD29 billion at our seriously depressed exchange rate. That would have bought 3.6% of Apple at recent prices. Or the whole of Uber according to a valuation by NYU's Damodaran.