A need for thinkers

Let me first of all give you a glimpse of the travails of my friend, Papy, one of those top foreign graduates imbued with the zeal to set their mark at an early stage in their career. I still recall that the last time he was given the assignment of drafting a speech for his Boss, it surprisingly received an unexpected forward thrust, without the customary tiring hurdles and the maze of hierarchical hiccups, before landing promptly on his boss’s desk.
            It was still in its original form, as uncouth and primitive as it was first conceived; his superiors had forwarded the draft speech as such to Big Boss with the well-meaning insidious motive of teaching him the bare essentials of any traditional bureaucracy which for the survival of its system of authority, based on hierarchy rather than competence, had to ensure that such arrogant initiatives are nipped in the bud. – You should first learn to be a follower and be an effective file pusher  – as for the enterprising or thinking part, leave it to the bosses!!!
          He was guilty of having tried his hand at something that demarcated from the run of the mill type- the usual civil servant stuff –he dared to think out of the box  – But luckily for him and  to the distastes of his immediate superiors , his  Boss was quite avant-gardiste ( as rare as the dodo these days) in accepting novel ideas- un peu osé, quand même- Big Boss added some polish to it,  putting more solid flesh on the ideas to give it a more digestible and consistent purport that was likely to be more palatable to his audience –an innovative piece that had the imprints of the adventurous possibilities and arrogance of a young mind but toned down by  the vision of the wise and the experienced.
But long before Big Boss left, Papy had already fully assimilated the maxims of these well-structured hierarchical institutions and how they deal with those that dare to demarcate from accepted “norms”; he did not go to the extent of becoming slavishly loyal to prescribed lines but he had learned how to walk between walls of forbidden topics and as his superiors acquired more and more powers the corridor got narrower and narrower. But it was too stifling for Papy. He was developing tunneled vision in an environment that was so hostile to talent and where most are more worried about their privileges and their well-cosseted, unadverserial routine. And that’s the realm of the corridors of power. He preferred to leave us for greener pastures of a new and qualitatively different environment.  Papy bequeathed me a whole collection of bits and pieces- not necessarily well thought out and meticulously planned- that unfold in their own space according to their own logic. Let me share with you some of these rapidly scribbled notes. Papy didn’t outsource his thinking to either his bosses or foreign consultants and think-thanks; he only thought .

Foreign policy: One of the stalwarts of the opposition had admonished government about the lack of clear-cut foreign and regional policies; that’s surprising indeed given that this gentleman was till recently one of the bosses at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Going through Papy’s papers, I note that he is very critical of the haphazard way they went about opting at the last moment for the Eastern and Southern Africa countries-ESA- for an EPA with EU after futilely leading us through SACU, SADC and COMESA.  Once the prescribed line was ESA, they all joined the bandwagon without much further thought about developing a meaningful regional strategy; we would not have been in such a mess presently if we had not constrained our options for developing durable and beneficial trade and investment links with other economies in the region. Now that Zimbabwe is no longer the granary of Southern Africa and that South Africa has problems of its own, we realise today how much time we have wasted in not paying enough attention to the immense possibilities of  exploiting the MMM triangle-the Mauritius-Mozambique-Madagascar triangle englobing the other IOC countries. Papy had noted “As we have already seen in some sectors, Mauritius is a sufficiently mature economy to embark on offshoring or outsourcing. This has occurred in both sugar and garments, with Mauritian financial capital and human capital being combined with relatively low cost labour in Madagascar and Mozambique. In the present context of persistent shortages and demand flare-ups of gros pois and ti pois, a consistent pro-active regional strategy will steer us towards building strategic complementarities and to  firm up our comparative advantage  while  exploiting the complementary assets of these economies for mutual benefit, for competitive advantages and for gaining entry into the globalised market.”

Sugar sector: In the context of the Multi-Annual Adaptation Strategy (MAAS),  it is not now that we should be discussing about the cost of electricity, coal, cost of other inputs, the amount of electricity that will be produced etc; This should have been raised some two years back ; By Papy’s notes that date back to the early drafts of the MAAS, he questioned many of the premises of MAAS, the  substantial increase in productivity of planters that was assumed, the viability of the ethanol project that has not been properly studied given that India already has an edge in this field and is threatening to tap the resources in the region to consolidate its position; As regards energy production, which still has a quite sizeable coal  component, we have no idea  about the reservation price or any other “cost effective approaches” to be adopted by government.

More importantly, by the end of the reform period after years of investment to convert the sugar industry into an efficient cane industry geared towards the production of sugar, high value-added sugar, by-products, ethanol and energy, we are not guaranteed that the reduction in production costs will be that substantive to provide the sector with the required edge over our immediate competitors. Papy even dared to add that if we care to give greater depth to the MMM triangle, we can develop meaningful alternatives to sugar. I’ll have to think more about that; This Papy guy, he indeed racks our brains.

 

Tianli: On this, Papy seemed to be quite crude and biased; he goes into a long tirade against the Chinese whom he alleges will not be adding much value or creating much employment and that it will be most likely to turn out into a self-contained area which will be capitalising on our on our logistics and regional networks to their advantage. And in the long run we might be left hanging out in the open, another low-end EPZ.

Congestion:  A mass transit alternative in the form of Light Rail Transit (LRT) had been proposed to reduce the vehicular traffic bound for Port Louis and other destinations in the PL-Curepipe corridor. It was reasoned that the LRT aided by some accompanying measures would significantly reduce the use of the PL-Curepipe corridor by the vehicular traffic for travelling to Port Louis and preceding destinations. Consequently, adequate room would be created for the quick transit of the remaining traffic. The ‘through’ traffic of the PL-C corridor and other accesses was proposed to be diverted via a bypass in the form of an outer ‘Ring Road’ around Port Louis. It was indicated that the Ring Road would not make it necessary for the ‘through’ traffic to enter Port Louis thereby reducing traffic congestion in all the accesses leading up to the city.

Much before they all joined the LRT bandwagon and sound the call for all to queue up as dutiful followers, Papy was among the few who dared to go against the trend and counter argue that it is not conclusive whether the Ring Road can comprehensively solve the problem of ‘through’ traffic. For instance it is not clear how the Ring Road, given its starting point at upper Pailles-just down Soreze, can capture the traffic from lower Plaines Wilhems and growing conurbation in the Black River region. This is the major weakness of the Ring Road project, which was estimated to cost close to more than Rs 4 billion in 2005.

Now the whole congestion problem is expected to be solved by the busway system and other accompanying measures ; And again we have a repeat of the familiar bandwagon and its load of followers eager to be seen following; Pappy , however, refused à courber l’ échine, persisting in claiming that he has a viable solution at a minimum cost of Rs 3.5 billion, without any congestion pricing, without Ring Road, without Dream Bridge, without bus lanes, or any other contortions that the Mauritian commuter will have to make. His action plan to relieve congestion at the very least up to 2015 is decentralization to a new administrative city at Highlands ( a PPP project) and the construction of a dual carriageway as a major road transit access from Terre Rouge or Pamplemousses leading to Wooton and Highlands via Nicolière and Verdun. That’s it.

Water: On this issue, Papy comments ironically that despite being increasingly aware that water is a threatened resource - water resources are under assault; a combination of exploding demand per capita, growing scarcity of supply and massive wastage- we seem to be more interested in disciplining the market than accepting market discipline. Similarly in the health sector, we persist with tax funded free - health system, though some simple measures like minimum user charges for every hospital visit( a kind of gatekeeper fee) and for high tech medical care and treatment (like cardiac surgery, angiography, corneal and renal transplant) for those who can afford to pay, will go a long way towards relieving some of the pressures on the health system.

Tourism and the IRS projects: Here I tend to support his views that the 2 million tourists target by 2015 is an aberration; the effective constraint on the future growth of tourism will not be the extent of demand from overseas but the limits of feasible capacity in the economy. The maintenance of quality tourism will inevitably impose limits on the increase in volume. We should rather be thinking about  boosting expenditure per tourist, increase the income and employment multiplier in the sector by diversifying into ecotourism, cultural/heritage tourism, community-based tourism, business tourism and MICE, duty-free shopping, and health and wellness tourism. ( the tourist villages that are now being proposed are not to his liking for it will only consolidate enclave tourism. He is for the integrated types à la Chamarel Integrated Development Project, supported by an aggressive tourism policy in each of the different market segments.) A new tourism is emerging, sustainable, environmentally and socially responsible, and characterised by flexibility and choice. Are we preparing ourselves for the longer term ? He doubts it !!!. 

On the IRS projects, he refused to add fuel to fire and only mentioned that others have been more than explicit about its short term gains and the long term pains. He prefered to dwell on the alternatives that should have been examined. What about a full-fledged Regional Multi-Centre of Excellence, to start with, in education, health, and hospitality management? Just think of it- hosting on the present IRS sites an Indian Institute of Technology or the Swiss School of Hotel Management- short term sacrifices for  long term gains including  the substantial external economies to the economy -Un peu osé , vous dites !!!

Monetary policy: Papy is all too happy that the introduction of the more market oriented repo rate and establishment of a more independent Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has strengthened monetary management. But the  MPC,  he is convinced, should comprise members who are well versed about the major channels of the monetary policy transmission mechanism and that it is about time that the BOM is equipped with the standard tools to help evaluate potential shocks hitting the economy such as the financial shocks (foreign interest rates, portfolio shifts), shocks to aggregate demand ( foreign demand, commodity prices, fiscal policy), shocks to potential output and shocks to inflation( net indirect taxes and energy prices).

Education: The introduction of free education in 1976 has been fundamental to the country’s economic and social success. The education system that has served us so well in the past can no longer foot the bill; it has  serious weaknesses that makes it inadequate for meting our future needs; it perpetuates inequalities in opportunity. Papy notes with concern that the country’s vaunted think thanks have mainly  tiptoed around the problem refusing to get to grips to the fact that government is now unable to support public schools ; Moreover quality is plunging; the state system is dysfunctional ; most of our products are misfits when they get out into the real world. Free education has ended up being very costly today. To emphasize his point, Papy had recourse to Mark Twain who said that “ history never repeats itself , it just rhymes” so it is unlikely that the same policies will be as effective in this phase of our development as in the last.

Higher education: In the long term performance of the higher education system depends on its ability to provide learning to a broad cross section of citizens, to advance national proficiency in maths and science and to create an adaptable labour force as well as to develop a national appreciation for discovery, entrepreneurship and the creative process. This will require that policymakers, business leaders and  the universities rededicate themselves to creating comprehensive learning and discovery environments, design entirely new models and methods of teaching to produce flexible and cosmopolitan graduates whom employees are looking for and then take action to implement them. Where are they, my goodness? “It is imperative that we get started now.” That was his final comment.

Papy was one of those exceptional breeds that our bureaucracies should have learned how to cherish and nurture instead of persisting in stifling such innovative spirits.  Though I found some of the initiatives quite naïve, he helped me to grow out of my lethargy to start seeing multiple sides to complex problems. I started thinking.