The Governor of our Central Bank is blunt. His
words that he does not mince may have hit a wave of hostility within the intellectual
elite and some institutions. He has the habit of steering us into uncharted
waters, into an unknown destination. Does he deserve a cheer from the
shoreline, or a blast on the foghorn. ? .....
Manou is not the new kid on the
block whom we have inherited from some international institutions busy
producing purely academic stuff. He has
won his spurs both as Director and Minister of the Ministry of Economic
Planning and Development (MEPD) spearheading its evolution from traditional
functions and policy adjustment preoccupations to a progressive involvement in
all major initiatives to enable the economy and the public institutions to be
outwardly-focussed.
The institution gradually imposed itself from a position of
strength as an initiator and facilitator
of change not only at the domestic level , namely the NLTPS, the NEDC, BOI,
NPCC, IVTB, FSPA, but also at the
regional level and further afield e.g its
lead role in the Indian Ocean Commission, the SADC, Cross Border
Initiative and the IOR_ARC . The
narrative of change is the story of people who embody it. Sometimes it takes a
fired imagination to get things moving
and Manou Bheenick is convinced that,
now more than ever, the country needs such initiatives if the horizons for
future progress are to widen and for Mauritius to shape its new role in a world
faced with new realities.
The march of history does not
have only one drumbeat. At every point
in the century it has been taken down side alleys and run up against the
barricades of those who think differently.
At the cusp of the 21st century we badly needed “avant gardistes”
institutions , thinkers, leaders and visionaries who will also be looking for the difficulties
on the road ahead. Manou Bheenick did try to provide a platform for addressing
such issues. The National Economic Development Council, or NEDC, and later
reframed into the NESC was supposed to be the “avant gardiste”
institution that looks for signposts on the road ahead - the many issues where
there is a need for deeper analysis, discussions and debates and consensus
building.
It was supposed to serve as a joint think tank and pressure group. “But it
is a pressure group with a difference since it can apply pressure either on
Government or on the private sector, depending on who needs prodding on the
particular issue concerned at that particular moment in time. It is a well-known fact that politicians are
averse to take measures that are unpopular and prefer to let sleeping dogs lie. The NESC had the explicit mandate to build
consensus, especially on thorny issues, and to bring them up to the position
where the political class can take over without paying too high a political
price. To do that, the NESC is comprised
of individuals who are there in a personal capacity. ......
It makes for a healthy atmosphere where there are no sacred cows, no
"no-go" areas, and everything can be examined in an objective and
non-partisan manner. Reports and
recommendations are publicly debated ...” Manou dixit.
Through
the NESC we have the framework to involve all participants in the several
issues – communities, NGOs, civil
society, private and public institutions, workers federations and all other
interested groups. The NESC was expected
to give meaning to the multifarious struggles of the Mauritian people
for greater control of their own lives, for decent standards of health,
education, housing, nutrition, for social justice and ageing with
attitude. We had thus every reason to look forward for a new Mauritian
model that best integrates the principles of top-down and bottom-up
participation with a pragmatic orientation to find consensual solutions to the
concerns and issues such that we will be able to work together more effectively
and succeed in turning that old adage “nothing about us without us” into
reality.
But the doers led by Ministry Of Finance
(MOFED) , the TINAs, who believed that
there were no alternatives to what they
were proposing, killed all the debates and thus did not give a chance for the
NESC to succeed. They imposed their short-term view of things. The urgent wins
over the important, tactic triumphs over strategy and patronage over public
good. For the past five years they have
failed to provide us with an image more in tune with our reality. They had one
of the biggest stage to play out their script but they did not have a script.
They failed to produce a shared vision – a common ground between government,
entrepreneurs, the middle class and the poor. In fact our ideas for the
Mauritian economy have in recent years become more ghettoised than ever. The
nebulous policy diktats bereft of all logic or explanation-Aid for trade,
Circular migration, Comesa Fund, IRS and ERS and its gated communities and the
latest ones- a rainy day fund or stopgap summer schools for CPE poor performers-
could not have been more unlikely or blinkered in its vision and cannot be said
to be visionary ideas to chart a way forward for the country.
The doers- the bean counters
-are unable to think over, push through and implement critical ideas. For
example, the Civil service reform often meets with resistance because for them
it is a tool for curbing government spending through personnel and wage cuts
rather than creating a skilled and efficient government workforce. Mauritius
Inc. is seriously concerned about the absence of decision-making on regional
cooperation issues. While they were waiting for Mauritius to emerge as the
service node linked to a huge network of manufacturing ventures all the way
through east Asia and into the Indian sub continent and as an ideal conduit for
inter African and Asian trade, India was already establishing an economic
footprint on the continent bolstered by its centuries-old ties of trade across
the Indian ocean and a million-strong Indian Diaspora across Africa. India is
already present in capacity building of institutions such as a new centre in
Uganda to train business about global markets, a diamond processing facility in
Botswana and assistance to cotton farmers in four of the continent poorest
countries. Bharti airtel’s $10 billion takeover of Zain’s Africa business has
made mobile call cheaper . Africa now consumes almost 15% of India’s total
generics drug production with Cipla and Dr Reddy’s being the biggest supplier
of HIV remedies. Mauritius being a packager of investment and joint ventures
for the African market , you said !!!! When?
Africa is emerging as the next big market for trade and
investment globally and Mauritius should fashion its policies accordingly.
Indeed there is an urgent need for a policy that helps Mauritian industries to
set up overseas business in the continent. Local banks in Africa, with limited
capacities, have been found wanting in backing foreign ventures. That’s where
our banks can be asked to scale up operations in Africa and “not miss out on the critical ingredients of
the recipe to add greater value and to move to the next stage of development.”
There is
little discussion about the extent to which policies pursued in recent years
have promoted growth, little debate on the manner in which these policies have
been imposed or how they have increased economic security and sense of
powerlessness. And a host of crucial national issues remain ignored, the most
galling being food security, energy, education, skills upgrading and public
sector and health sector reforms. For the past few years, we have become adept
at finding our way round our obstacles in policies. But these detours around
ineffective and unreformed systems are shaping a growth path for Mauritius that
is very different from the one we intended or expected. The threats for the
Mauritian economy lie here in these unswept corners of policy that we now avoid
and step around because they will determine the country Mauritius is set to
become. For instance, as the chasm between have and have-nots is deepening,
people are cordoning themselves in gated housing communities with private
supplies of electricity, water and security. And our education system continues
creating thousands of educated illiterates who cannot string a coherent paragraph
together and whose certificates are not worth the paper they are printed
on.
As one economist has aptly commented -“ what I discovered however that they did not
believe that just putting our ideas out there mattered”. It does matter for
this seeds new ideas among people . There are many ideas that have largely been
missing from our public discourse even though they are critical to our future.
Many of our ideas and reforms have followed economic templates that have proved
successful across the world and our corporations have modelled themselves on
best practices and standards. But Mauritius new challenges are demanding much
more of us in innovative new ideas as existing
solutions for issues like health, energy and environment have proved
ineffective around the world.
Manou’s advice to the Fiji government in his
address (
Mauritius and Fiji:Oceans Apart
- Or Just Islands Apart?”) at the
National Economic Summit held in Suva, Fiji, back in 1995, is still very pertinent today especially
for our doers- “If I were in your shoes,
I would give top priority to creating the conditions for economic growth
and develop an agenda for growth by
consensus on both the content and the pace of reform. I would build up a national alliance for
growth, drawing on all available talent and the fund of goodwill which I am
sure is there waiting to be tapped. I
would dissipate the domestic political uncertainty that seems to hang like a
cloud over your economic prospects.
There are enough dark clouds on the international horizon; so why should
you add some of your own making? I would
undertake a thoroughgoing policy review to reduce the policy deficit that you
have in relation to the prevailing best practice in different policy
areas. Armed with this, I would improve
the policy stance and go about restoring confidence in the economy, its
managers, and its people. Without this,
it would be difficult to instil any dynamism in the economy and to get out of
the nightmare envisaged in the pessimistic scenario presented in a recent World
Bank Report”
There
are powerful dynamics that are transforming the Mauritian economy, it will be a
time of new challenges and a time for new resolve. The doers in their day to
day involvement in their work rarely provides a chance to look beyond the
immediate future, leave alone mull over contentious issues which could have a
bearing on our lives in years to come. If we do not want short-term expediency to create long term
pains at least for 10-15 years to come, we need to put in place a new team of
thinkers- and a new institution- that will thus approach development with a
more comprehensive framework, a wider consensus to ensure a continued
commitment to reform and innovative ideas , an awareness of broader objectives
and more instruments, a greater sensitivity to the complexity of the
development process, greater sense of humility in the face of the tasks ahead
but a greater sense of optimism about what
the future might bring. That will go a long way to meeting the
challenges, seizing the opportunities and defining the destiny of this nation
for decades to come. It would be our surest way of avoiding the beaten path
leading to Mauritius- the home of the DODO. Manou deserves a cheer from the
shoreline.
