Sithanen Statements That Don't Survive A Fact-Check

1. No country invests more than 50% of their reserves in gold. Saying otherwise is pure folly (2009). Really?

Who Do We Send To Parliament Now?

Houston Mauritius,

We Have a Problem

Because we're in a huge mess and the three major parties/alliances are brain dead. It's good to remember that proper political projects are essentially about baking a cake and sharing it – see chart 1 – while not considering nature as an afterthought but as a priority at every stage when solving pressing problems. The cakes we’ve been baking since 2006 have been the smallest of the last thirty years and their sharing the worst. That's before using the value of our currency to further check their quality. In fact the cake baked by the Lepep government is the same size as the one cooked by Ramgoolam in his third mandate after adjusting for term length but while the distribution is slightly better our rupee has lost 16% against the USD over the past five years. Overall the situation has become a lot worse because the idolatrous economy initiated by Navin has metastised.

How Did You Like Ramgoolam's Fourth Term?

The one that’s about to end. But he hasn't been Prime Minister since December 2014 I hear you think. So he has completed three terms. Not four. True. But it would not have been a lot different for a majority of voters in several ways. Given that the 2014 'gros piège à cons' of the Bérenger-Ramgoolam-Sithanen trio was complex enough to generate several dangerous outcomes we'll make a few assumptions to narrow the analysis before looking at how it would have been different and similar.

Bean-Counter Who Broke the Economy Says He Understands How it Works

Tram Will Cut Down

Road Fatalities By 20%. Really?

That was on a radio program in the second quarter of 2017 when Sithanen argued against the Lepep tram while Chung defended it. Chung, a senior advisor at the PMO at the time, predicted that the introduction of the tram would slow down the growth of the car pool and reduce road fatalities by 10%-20% every year (save 20-30 lives) which he claimed happened everywhere in the world. Flyovers and a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) were not options for him.

What Did Trees in Beau-Vallon and Our Savings Culture Have in Common?

Another bleak reality is the decline in national savings rate. It has fallen from an average of 26 percent of GDP in the period 1996-2000 to 24.6 percent in the period 2001-2005. CSO is forecasting a very low savings rate of 19.5 percent for 2005. Here again, we must be utterly concerned. 

Rama Sithanen, 2005

... il a fait beaucoup de tort à la culture d'épargne des Mauriciens en enlevant les exemptions fiscales sur les prêts immobiliers ainsi que les études supérieures de leurs enfants, 

tout en taxant les intérêts bancaires.

Dan Bundhoo, 2014

Simple. They had gone through plenty but survived. There's a word for this and it is resilience. Granted it's a term that has been abused in Mauritius over the past decade. But it's easy to show what it really means. As RAFAL wrote about the resilience of trees recently I will focus on our savings culture. 

Pope to Spend Day With Victim of Unbridled Capitalism

He will find a Mauritius that's a lot more vulnerable than when John Paul II visited us thirty years ago. The damage done by an extreme version of trickle-down economics — 'dung of the devil' as Francis quoted a fourth century bishop to his Santa Cruz, Bolivia audience back in 2015 (as reported by The Guardian) and which has been dubbed Shaitanomics here since 2010 — is extensive and captured in chart 1. 

Why Tax Policy Should Be Detailed in Affidavits

Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. 

If a rich man wants to help the poor, 

he should pay his taxes gladly, 

not dole out money at a whim.

Clement Atlee, Former British Prime Minister

Which affidavits? The ones candidates and political parties in the forthcoming general election will swear before we shortlist them as worthy of our votes. We’ve seen how irresponsible income and corporate tax cuts implemented since 2006 have extensively damaged the economy and the social fabric under three different PMs. While Navin Ramgoolam’s position on taxes during the past five years has oscillated between lowering them further to 13% for women and not raising them should he return to power. This is kind of worrying because it is the most urgent and important thing to do to avoid a significant degradation of an atmosphere that’s already pretty bad. So until we have recall elections and statute referendums we need affidavits and debates on their contents. Because politicians put something in their manifestos and then do the exact opposite.

PJ Says No to More Women in Parliament

MPs from the PMSD and the Labour Party told the PM in parliament recently that if he presents a separate bill for an increased presence of women in our National Assembly (NA) they will vote for it. This is a very positive development given that we do pretty badly on this yardstick. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union at the start of 2019 four african countries ranked 12th or better as far as the proportion of female ministers in a cabinet go. Mauritius is 150th out of 178 spots while Rwanda takes position number six. We do slightly worse in terms of the percentage of women in parliament (156th out of 191 while Rwanda is first). But sadly the PM would have none of it replying that he can't see why he should do something these MPs failed to do when they were in power. A pretty lame excuse but no surprise here as female representation is part of the wrapping of a poisonous electoral reform that will make throwing MPs out of parliament a lot more difficult.

PM Presses Ahead With Own Version of Banana Republic

The bill on electoral reform in the National Assembly (NA) is effectively as dangerous and crappy as the one we massively rejected in December 2014. It doesn't solve anything and shrinks our democracy. Given that we don't have recall elections and statute referendums yet it is important that enough MPs abstain and vote against the introduction of proportional representation (PR). It is even better that a few MPs resign from parliament to send another clear signal that we will not allow Lepep to break yet another of its pledges and put MPs at the centre of a conflict of interest. Let's focus on the parts of this bill that are most dangerous and deal with three misconceptions.

Not a Lot of Business Done

Since the moronic World Bank's Doing Business rankings were put on a pedestal by a couple of bean-counters and our taxation structure flattened starting in 2006. See the promised 8% growth over the last 13 years should have produced a little over six trillion rupees of national output. But as chart 1 shows Mauritius generated only about four and half trillion rupees of GDP. The difference – the Sithanen toohrooh – should cross the trillion-and-a-half-rupee mark by the time you play a famous U2 song a couple of minutes after 23h58 on the last day of 2018. Breaking down this shortfall yields important political insights.

Thoughts on Electoral Reform (7)

I came to very clearly believe that 
a form of PR would be harmful to Canada.

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada,
Feb 1, 2018 on why he's sticking with FPTP

You can have any colour 

as long as it is black.

Henry Ford, about the Model T, 1909

Pravind Al Lapes Rekin 

Ek Enn Lapipi Danzere

It's clear to everyone who doesn't want to get distracted by its wrapping – the jargon, the apparent concern for increased female representation and other gimmicks – that the electoral reform the PM presented on behalf of the Lepep government about ten days ago will turn our country into an autocracy with leaders appointing MPs, suppress dissent which is the lifeblood of democracies and make it a lot more difficult for voters to keep politicians out of our National Assembly (NA).

Chamboulons notre système électoral: A note

A few comments about this article which appeared yesterday.

1. We have an excellent electoral system called the FPTP while the Sachs Commission's alphabet soup of electoral options are all PR-based. Which makes that part of the report quite narrow. It's not the fault of the Commission. They were given terms of reference that were not broad enough. Which is a pity. Never mind there are tweaks that can be made to our FPTP setup without changing its essence. I have proposed such a disinterested tweak in July 2014 and have kept improving it in a series of papers. These and the backgrounders are available here. I must confess that initially I didn't understand why the Labour Party of Seewoosagur (who turned 118 yesterday), Kher and Renga were dead against PR. I understand now. It's hard not to have even more respect for them and others who fought against PR when you go deep into the FPTP system and find out how extraordinary it is.

Freymwurk Pu Analiz Dekolonizasyon

Kifer Gandhi pankor mor?

Sel reaksyon Winston Churchill, selon Shashi Tharoor, se sa not la dan fayl

bann memo kot ofisyel Angle ti pe dir li ki dimunn pe mor lor sime dan Bengal  

Enn Ti Kestyon

Si mo dimann zot ki pei tiena pli gro lekonomi pandan plis letan dernye 2,000 banane ki zot pu reponn? Langleter? Lamerik? Lafrans? Lespayn? Non. Len. Len tiena pli gro lekonomi pandan 85% sa letan la. Sa ve dir 1,700 banane. Sirpri? Pa tiapran lekol? Pa konvinki? Be pran enn minit sink segon pu get sa zoli ti video ki The Economist ti fer an 2014 la. Li korobor seki Shashi Tharoor ti dir dan emisyon Q&A TV Ostralyen ABC Septam lane dernyer. Kav usi get enn rapor ADB pu gayn enn lot pies pezel. Len se enn ka interesan pu konpran konpleksite linpak kolonizasyon lor enn pei.

PM Sounds Death Knell for URA

By announcing that the price of water will not go up. See the Utility Regulatory Authority was set up on the basis of a rather sloppy justification to fix the price of stuff like water and electricity. Now if the PM decides that there won't be any increases it immediately makes that institution redundant. Why spend so much money on a new institution when the work can be done elsewhere like at the Ministry of Finance? It also cuts the energy minister who heads the tiniest of political parties to size and is another splendid reason for him to tender his resignation.

Why You Forgot 2018 is The Year of The 'Second Economic Miracle'

... je pense que vers 2008 nous pouvons réaliser un taux de croissance de 7/8%.

Rama Sithanen, 2005

54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. 

Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation 2013 

No Miracle in Sight

Half of the fourth year of the Lepep government is almost gone and still no trace of the exceptional economic performance SAJ had promised for 2018. Only growth rates of less than 4% so far and the next two years are not likely to be any different. These are the lowest in decades. 

Thoughts on Electoral Reform (6)

A political rape of democracy
SSR on the Banwell Report, 1966

Enn komeraz sa

SAJ on PR, Rodrigues, 2015 

We know that our excellent First Past The Post (FPTP) system generates results that are sometimes too lopsided. But electoral reform cannot ignore fundamental facts. We've looked at a number of them in the first five parts of this series of articles (these have appeared in the Forum section between April 8, 2014 and December 22, 2016). We'll consider a couple more here, revisit a few and offer some fresh insights on three electoral proposals. But first let us have a look at a useful decomposition of the FPTP system.

32% of World Bank Policy Reports Never Downloaded

"... I am not an engineer, I am not a technician and everything that I have done in my life is only law. So, I need expert advice and I am going to put experts and not politicians at the Head of the CEB and the CWA. I am not going to do appel international and all that."

Ivan Collendavelloo, in Parliament, March 2015

"... Nun fini konpran ki nu bizin lasistans de la bank mondyal pu ki nu kapav fer bann bon developman dan sekter delo."

Ivan Collendavelloo, Feb 2016

The World Has No Time
For This Kind Of Nonsense

So reported The Economist at the end of last May. It referred to a study by the World Bank on the popularity of its policy reports. As almost half of them are supposed to at least improve public debate the two authors of the report – Doerte Doemeland and James Trevino – looked at how many times 1,611 of these policy documents were downloaded. Turns out that almost a third was never downloaded. I am not surprised. I got to read a few them over the years and I must say there's a lot of rubbish in there. So I perfectly understand that no one is bothering about so many of these reports. Who has time for crap in this fast-moving, intelligent and hyper-connected world?

Recall Elections Are Key To Better Political Outcomes

A recall election is a constitutional tool to eject an MP from Parliament anytime between general elections if enough of the voters in her constituency sign a petition to that effect. A by-election is then organised. Given the performance and the behaviour of some of the MPs that we've been sending to Parliament over the past 15-20 years we voters clearly need a way to make them work in our national interest throughout a whole term and not just a little bit at the start and another little bit at the end. Recall elections do precisely that.

Had we had this system in place since 2005 we would have been an entirely different country by keeping elected politicians on their toes. In at least four situations. The first one is in February 2007 when Sithanen took the country hostage because he wanted to second-guess the prerogative of the PM with respect to the appointment of the Governor of the Bank of Mauritius. He then went on to cause extensive damage to our economy for three whole years. With a recall election he might have been out in a few months. A by-election in those days would have cost around Rs20-25 million. A trifle really compared to what he has set in motion: a trillion-rupee Toohrooh. 

Elekter Kontinye Redesin Terin Politik

An desam 2014 elekter ti konpran ki Ramgoolam, Berenger ek Sithanen ti pe rod fer nu pei vinn enn repiblik bananyer. Alor zot finn fer Ramgoolam perdi puvwar ek so siez, finn gard Sithanen an deor parlman pu omwin sink an ankor ek mank tigit Berenger usi ti pwal dan karo kann. Ek la dernye eleksyon parsyel finn montre nu kuma li top kan nu vot zis pu enn kandida par sirkonskripsyon -- single member constituencies (SMC) an angle: bann parti politik met bon kandida, kalite deba buku pli bon ek pa tann bann betiz kuma 'vot blok' uswa 'si zot ule minis zot bizin vot 3-0'. Mazinn enn kut dan ki kalite bon latmosfer nu bann eleksyon zeneral ti pu derule si nu ti vot pu enn sel kandida dan sak sirkonskripsyon. Anfet li ti kumsa an 1959 ek 1963. Nu tiena karant SMC. Li pa etonan ki sa finn fer nu gayn bann bon depite ek apre bann bon minis kinn fer nu pei mari avanse. Li ti pu bon pu Moris si nu ti return ek 40 SMC.

Gid Inkonple Eleksyon Parsyel Bel-Roz Kat-Born

42,052 elekter pe al vote dimans la semen prosen. Monn ekut pa mal emisyon kot enn pake kandida ti partisipe. Ansam avek se ki mo kone ala mo inpresyon lor zot.

Danrajsingh Aubeeluck. Lider seleb Parti Malin. Si bann zanfan ti vote se li ki ti pu eli. Mo panse li ti pu fer enn byen meyer minis de finans ki Sithanen.

Roshi Badhain. Dapre lord si li ti gayn pos minis ki li pe konvwate li ti pu ankor dan guvernman la. Kon fer komik me pa konpran enn pake zafer inportan. Par ekzanp li dir ki guvernman mank kas parski Ramgoolam finn tro depanse lor erport ek ring road. Li pa konpran ki se flat tax 15% kinn fu Moris dan tru.