Comments:
Brilliant article by Arvind Boolell on the Fnance Bill dealing with the financial sector in Le Mauricien of the 7th August.
Now that the Global Business Sector is feeling the heat from all sides-this time even from our dear African brothers-there is a sudden awakening of the small chosen coterie of advisers and civil servants. As many as 69 amendments to legislations pertaining to financial sector are being made in the forthcoming Finance Bill.
Since 2005, no meaningful road map or blueprint for the financial sector towards activities of greater value and substance has been made public.
(On the contrary, we have wasted precious years in trying to preserve the status quo-the long-standing treaty preferences- in a denial of the new realities.The India-Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement, though beneficial for quite some time, has, however, locked us in low value-added activities).
(On the contrary, we have wasted precious years in trying to preserve the status quo-the long-standing treaty preferences- in a denial of the new realities.The India-Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement, though beneficial for quite some time, has, however, locked us in low value-added activities).
Moreover, our financial sector has regularly been in the news because of foreign tax dodgers and fraudsters and our detractors tend to perceive us as a secrecy jurisdiction thriving mainly on tax arbitrage.
In 2018 itself, we have been ”involved” or rather named, in a series of financial scams from Beaufort Securities to the alleged $2bn fraud of the Punjab National Bank and the jeweller Nirav Modi, to Ireo, one of India’s biggest property developers, one of Donald Trump’s business partners in India and more recently Alvaro Sobrinho and Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais of Quantum Global and a local top bank which is mixed up in a potential Rs3.5 billion fraud.
Is it all a question of our regulatory and enforcement ineffectiveness.?
Arvind Boolell provides us with some the reasons of the ineffectiveness at the institutional level in Part I of his article.
The financial scandals have taken their toll on the sector. THE FINANCIAL SECTOR NEEDS A MEANINGFUL BLUEPRINT NOT A "DAMP SQUID".
We impatiently look forward to Part II.
In 2018 itself, we have been ”involved” or rather named, in a series of financial scams from Beaufort Securities to the alleged $2bn fraud of the Punjab National Bank and the jeweller Nirav Modi, to Ireo, one of India’s biggest property developers, one of Donald Trump’s business partners in India and more recently Alvaro Sobrinho and Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais of Quantum Global and a local top bank which is mixed up in a potential Rs3.5 billion fraud.
Is it all a question of our regulatory and enforcement ineffectiveness.?
Arvind Boolell provides us with some the reasons of the ineffectiveness at the institutional level in Part I of his article.
The financial scandals have taken their toll on the sector. THE FINANCIAL SECTOR NEEDS A MEANINGFUL BLUEPRINT NOT A "DAMP SQUID".
We impatiently look forward to Part II.
Arvind Boolell confirms our apprehensions that the amendments to different Acts and the changes in the global business regime may not lead to much if we do not, first of all, improve "our overall institutional regulatory and enforcement framework for greater consistency and cooperation and effectiveness ". He does point out the confusion about the roles of FIU, Asset Recovery Unit and ICAC and the conflicts among these institutions-similarly at the level of coordination between the BOM and FSC.
But he is quite pessimistic about the future prospects of the financial sector in the wake of the closure of the window for capital gains exemptions in April 2019 as the "legal changes will no doubt adversely affect the prospects for expanding business and employment creation in the financial sector."
We seem to be dealing with a bunch of amateurs who are scrambling to paper over the cracks without any long term view of the development of the financial sector.
Where is the long-awaited Government blueprint or strategy to counter the negative impact of international pressures on the development of our financial business ?
