La verité historique de Tsang Man Kin

Tsang Man Kin concludes his “ verité historique “ as follows : Qu’on ne vienne pas raconter des histoires sur le rôle d’Anerood Jugnauth sur l’industrialisation et encore moins sur le développement et la réussite de Maurice ! Ce sont deux hommes : Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam et le Général de Gaulle qui ont mis Maurice sur le chemin du développement de la prospérité qui a suivi. Que les jeunes générations ne l’oublient pas !

My comments: " It is very logical to argue that our industrialization has as its base -its foundation - the import substitution policies, the structural adjustment programs, the access to guaranteed markets, the quality of our institutions of conflict management etc. but it is inexact to portray others who were fighting for a more humane form of “zone franche” ( zone souffrance) to be against industrialisation.

Your interpretation of this crucial phase of our short economic history is static -a narrow and disempowering notion of history that tries to replace a dimensional, dynamic unfolding notion of historicity(as the quality, for all of social life, of being situated in a determinate political moment). "

We refuse to give way to these revisionists who have taken a purely political , partisan and static approach in their interpretation of our economic history . For our revisionists -"Le MMM de Bérenger et Jugnauth étaient contre la Zone Franche, contre l’entrée dans la CEE et contre le Tourisme. Mais qu’est-ce qu’ils proposaient à la place ? "

For the sake of the younger generation, let’s flash back to the state of the economy in 1981: catastrophically high twin deficits: the balance of payments and the budget deficits ; the current account deficit as a % of GDP was at a record high of 14.4% ; unemployment had reached the 60,000 level for the first time, (73,000 in 1982) and the inflation rate was 42% . We could not wait any longer. The economy had to be taken to the intensive care unit. The IMF and the World Bank were called in. The 30% devaluation of the rupee in October 1979 marked the opening shot of the structural adjustment programmes.

With the support of the IMF/WB, Mauritius adopted a consistent programme of reforms- Fiscal stabilisation, Exchange rate re-alignment, Cautious wage policies, Trade liberalisation, Financial consolidation,Sectoral/supply side policies...

Our revisionists are well aware that our short economic history has been characterised by policy continuity- Mauritius has been a diligent disciple of the Bretton Woods instititutions- their poster boy ; they know very well that the “MMM de Bérenger” ,for its very short time in power-did not take over or nationalise any sector, did not close down the free trade zone or the tourism sector , or carried out any land reform or thwarted the 14 families or so, it was claiming, were controlling the economy.

On the contrary , the MMM continued with the policies that greatly promoted the competitiveness of our EPZ exports and, supported by favourable world economic conditions, set the stage for higher sustained growth of the EPZ sector. EPZ growth averaged 21% for the period 1983-1989 with a peak of 34.9% in 1986.

To point out just one element of the policy continuity that enabled Mauritius to capitalise on its potential comparative advantage and obtain substantial gains from trade, it all started with the delinking of the rupee from the SDR and pegged to a basket of currencies. Since then, a flexible exchange rate policy was pursued to depreciate the rupee gradually, which was particularly favourable to the expansion of the EPZ. We owe at least that much-this very minimum among others- to "Bérenger and his team" and the post 1983 regime which continued with this policy, whether u want to admit it or not.

Our revisionist economic historians will have to add "Bérenger and his team” to their list when they “ rend hommage à Sir Satcam Boolell, Sir Leckraz Teeluck, Sir Guy Sauzier et Raymond Chasle derriere cette réussite magnifique !” And to the IMF/WB for ensuring that the political elite fell in line to the dictates of the economic elite.

This was just an “apercu” from a purely economic standpoint and it is a static narrative of that period without any value judgements, just an attempt to highlight the contradictions in the static and partial analysis used by the revisionists to tilt economic history in their favor. For a more dynamic narrative which will be needing more research and time , we will come back to you in due course….

15Prakash Neerohoo, Raj Ramlugun and 13 others

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