Bérenger Statements That Don't Survive A Fact-Check

1. I'm the real father of the economic miracle (2019). Something Ramgoolam acknowledged in parliament a few weeks ago. The problem with this statement is that Bérenger was Finance Minister for only nine months as from June 1982 and alliance partners spent a lot of their time fighting each other which left very little time to hatch such a miracle. Plus Bérenger returned as FM between 2000 and 2003 during which time he presented not one but three budgets. We know what one of his colleagues had to say about the economy back then. And that there are problems with this notion of economic miracle.

2. Mauritius is the best managed country in the world (2003). That's what Bérenger repeated several times when he was PM. You need to wonder which yardsticks he was using to arrive at such a conclusion. 

3. We want to make Mauritius a beacon in the region (2014). That was said after the dangerous LP/MMM alliance was sealed. That alliance was based on three crazy things: replace our excellent Westminster system with a semi-Presidential system, add a dose of PR to our battle-tested FPTP system and appoint Sithanen as FM. We've seen what happened between the PM and the President in 2012 and around the time Mauritius turned 50. The problems with PR are well-documented and we don't want them especially when better solutions are available. And what to say of having Sithanen as Minister of Finance again?

4. France Telecom is the real deal (2000). A statement made when FT was in the process of buying 40% of Mauritius Telecom. At that time FT was probably the most indebted company in the world. And it's not a secret that management practices at the French company were not exactly world-beating at that time.

5. The sugar industry is in mortal danger (2014). Sugar has been dead for a long time.

6. The rates of return on the IPP contracts are too high. 10% is good (2010). This was said after if was revealed that IPPs made annual returns in excess of 35% and that too without taking any risks. The process of determining a fair rate of return is well-established. Which risks does Bérenger think the 10% would be rewarding?

7. Mauritius is one of the rare countries to use the FPTP system (2023). Really?

 

8. Our FPTP electoral system is a curse (2023). The electoral system we have coupled with the BLS is the best electoral system in the world. 

   

9. Ramgoolam has provoked the Tamil-Mauritians by sidelining Sithanen (2010). Tamil-Mauritians are aware that Sithanen fried the economy between 2005 and 2010 and is probably the biggest electoral liability ever. We saw what happened to his political career since then.

10. We need the Chagos money to get out of the mess the MSM has thrown Mauritius into (2024). Statement made to the BBC. Well, we'll be receiving these funds but government has nevertheless moved the eligibility for old age pension from 60 to 65 years. Bérenger clearly has no idea of the mess we've been in since 2006 and its cause.

11. We made the rich pay so we could do the maximum for the poor (2025). Implementing a fair-share contribution to return to a more sustainable tax structure like it was before Sithanen started killing the economy with his 15% flat tax for a maximum of three years is no maximum. You should at least keep it literally forever. And we know the kind of effect snatching old age pension from 60 to 65 year-olds will have. We've been there before.

12. For a democrat like me who's been fighting to deepen our democracy for many years, the electoral reform proposed by the MSM which restores the numerical advantage produced by the FPTP is revolting (2018). Restoring the numerical advantage of the FPTP shows that the MSM understands electoral reform better than the MMM and surprisingly the Labour Party but their proposal would create all kinds of serious problems. I have proposed a much better solution based on thinking and writing about this topic since 2005. We know what should be done to deepen our democracy.

13. Where will little Mauritius find Rs50 billion for an island terminal in five or ten years? (2026). By a conservative estimate, there was Rs1,235 billion of 2024 rupees of revenue missing in the government till with respect to the 8% growth that was promised by Sithanen with his 15% flat tax. That's more than 25X the investments needed in the island terminal if we're paying everything upfront. It's more than 25X because rupees of 2031 and 2036 are worth less in 2024. Plus we could have financed the project which would have required a far smaller initial amount. And let us not forget that Patrick Assirvaden told us back in 2010 that "little Mauritius" was likely to have pay IPPs more than Rs56 billion over a 20-year period. 

14. There's not one country in the world which had a non-contributory old age pension like we had (2026). Google disagrees. It mentions New Zealand, Kiribati, Samoa, Namibia, Botswana, Bolivia and Argentina. Plus as we've demonstrated several times it's the unfair-share contribution aka 15% flat tax since 2006 which has been transforming Mauritius into a failed state which, by the way, is far worse than junk status.

15. The current political system doesn't encourage a greater participation of women in politics (2026). 11 years ago, when asked why it was important for him to have a gender-balanced cabinet, Justin Trudeau, PM of a country which has basically the same electoral system as us had this to say.

16. Women must be at the centre of electoral reform. 2026. Bérenger wants to add 20 PR seats to our current electoral system and one of the excuses he has used is that there are not enough women in parliament. The problem with PR seats is that we could end up having 20 unelected ministers and among them an unelected PM. Mauritians adamantly wanting their PM as well as most of their ministers elected and therefore accountable, irrespective of their gender, to a constituency is one of the reasons that PR was rejected three times beginning in 1956. 

We should also note that when Sachs published his report in 2002 there only 5.7% of MPs were women but three years later it had trebled to 17.1%. That number peaked to 20% in GE2019 and fell a little bit to 18.2% in GE2024. Which is to say that we made rapid progress but then plateaued. The main reason being of course that leadership of our main political parties have been too patriarchal. In GE2019 out of the 24 candidates Lalit fielded 11 or nearly 46% were women.

And it's not the only problem with PR.