Public Sector Reforms : Never heard about it !!!!

Are they - who are likely to become redundant and more accountable with the wide-ranging reforms to deliver tangible change in the public sector- sabotaging it ?

The new Iron Curtain ?

From north to south,west to east, it’s a historical turning point; the contours of a new world map are emerging which are likely to transform the geopolitical landscape bringing back the worst periods of the Cold War. Is it a new Iron Curtain that is descending on the world sealing off the two hostile blocs armed to the teeth pointing nuclear weapons at each other across the curtain ? Is it possible that what we had once consigned to the history books - announcing the global triumph of political and economic liberalism after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989-is making a return?

Jalsa à Dubai !!!

All of the post-covid hope of households have turned into gloom. Households are now grappling with rising living costs at a time when jobs and incomes have taken a hit, first with the pandemic and now with the Ukraine war. The prices of basic foodstuffs are on the rise for a year now and are still rising affecting household budgets; their monthly household budget can buy only one fourth of what they could a few months ago.

The relentless rise in the cost of living-the inflation rate has likely entered the double-digit territory-pushing large swathes of the population into poverty. And there are reasons to believe that it will get worse during the year.

And our Pada -ki kroir li pé kas enn gros paké- by announcing, in his pre-budget consultations ,that the budget will be improving “ la vie au quotidien de toute la population en portant une attention particulière aux plus vulnérables.”

Non, mon cher Pada, the households have already dipped into their savings and many are overly indebted, they cannot afford to wait for the budget. They need immediate relief now.

The low-wage workers, the unemployed and small businesses, and not the big corporations, have been the ones who have been most hurt by the pandemic and now they are having to pay for your incompetence in properly managing the fiscal and monetary policies-heavy monetary financing of the budget deficit, which is aggravating pressures on depreciation and inflation.

A relief package for households is long-overdue.

That cannot wait any longer !

Every Mauritian should listen to this attached audio , it’s so scandalous about “the jalsa in Dubai” (chk my google drive link, it's being circulated on social media !)

https://drive.google.com/.../1wy9MHfoSSXiZZyxLGss.../view...

or

https://www.dropbox.com/.../Jalsa%20in%20Dubai%20Audio%20...

In le Mauricien of 25th March “Avec la sévère crise économique, une nouvelle réalité se dessine. Le niveau de vie devient précaire chez un nombre grandissant d’enfants. L’alimentation devient alors rare, l’éducation passe au second plan, la santé est négligée, l’équilibre familial est perturbé et le manque de loisirs attire vers les fléaux sociaux. Quel avenir pour ces adultes de demain ? Quelle pierre seront-ils susceptibles d’apporter à l’édifice national s’ils sont aujourd’hui laissés pour compte, sans aucune formation ? De quel poids leurs multiples manques pèseront-ils sur notre économie demain ?

Meanwhile , once the travel restrictions were lifted, Pada and Co. started their “maja karo" again; they assembled to “amizé, mangé, bwar, and gaspiyé"; they were so relieved to be able to resume travelling that they flocked in ballooning numbers to Dubai Expo and it was reckless mayhem at Dubai !!!

That’s how our money- taxpayers money- is being spent , that’s Pada version of ”un budget social".

“Il faut savoir qui sont ceux qui ont participé, qui a composé les délégations et déterminer les petits copains et les petites copines qui étaient de la partie. Mais plus important, il faut déterminer combien tout cela a coûté aux contribuables.”

It was Pada’s decision - flooding the economy with irresponsible money creation and his deliberate policy choice of an accelerated depreciation of the rupee to create valuation gains on the Reserve Fund and sending the fiscal spending into overdrive- that has exacerbated the global inflationary trends.

He has money for“maja karo” , he can as well compensate consumers now, they cannot wait for budget time!

Did the "jouisseurs of Dubai" wait to pick up their “per diem ?” .

Mauritius – Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) Update

The World Bank has published a report on Mauritius entitled “Mauritius – Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) Update”, dated January 2022, which identifies the new 7 top priorities for the World Bank in Mauritius in the light of recent and new developments. In view of the deteriorating fiscal situation, bringing debt levels to over 100% of GDP, the World Bank has introduced a new criterion which emphasizes the importance of fiscal reforms and consolidation in the medium term.

Public Debt

In the World Bank’s debt analysis, public debt was on the rise prior to Covid, increasing further following Covid related fiscal expenditures “from 65 percent of GDP in June 2019 to 101 percent in June 2021 and will likely remain elevated in the medium term.” The World Bank has developed two debt scenarios –

1. Scenario One with revenues and expenditures in line with pre Covid trends, without any fiscal correction measures

2. Scenario Two with tax revenue measures, and cuts in public spending, including a capping of Basic Retirement (old age) pensions at current levels.

GDP growth is assumed to average about 3% annually and inflation around 2% yearly. Under Scenario I, on a no policy change basis, the debt to GDP ratio would rise continuously after 23/24 to reach over 120% of GDP by 2035. Under Scenario 2, with fiscal consolidation, the debt ratio would be reduced to 90% of GDP in 2035.

The World Bank concludes that “in the absence of significant adjustments to the fiscal trajectory, the debt level would rise to unsustainable levels in the medium term.”

BRP

The World Bank notes that the BRP is not targeted to the poor and has regressive effects, contrary to the Social Aid Program and the Marshall Plan Social Contract, which are more effective in tackling poverty and inequality.

The World Bank also notes that the dismantling of the NPF contributory pension system for private sector workers “could put further pressure on future increases in the Consolidation Sociale Generalisee as the population ages”.

Governance

The World Bank also highlights the lack of fiscal transparency and the deterioration of perceptions of public institutions. Since 2015, previous progress made with Program Based Budgeting has been reversed, and fiscal management has deteriorated due to the increasing use of off-budget special purpose vehicles and extra budgetary funds for public investment. The World Bank notes that “Trust in public institutions and democracy is decreasing”. and that “Mauritius has dropped its ranking on the Corruption Perceptions Index since 2012”.

Climate Change

The World Bank draws attention to the high vulnerability of the infrastructure sector to climate change, particularly the ICT, energy, water and transport sectors. Climate risks arise from sea severe coastal erosion and sea level rise, and flooding and storm surges.

“Climate change is already affecting physical water availability. CWA produces about 46 percent of treated water from surface water resources and about 54 percent of the treated water from boreholes. Mauritius has reached the limit of sustainable exploitation of its aquifers and the availability of water resources is heavily dependent on rainfall which is affected by climate change.

It is projected that Mauritius would move from being a water-stressed country to become a water scarce country when it reaches a population of 1.34 million (as of 2020, the population was 1.26 million), with a projected per capita water availability of 974 cubic meters (World Bank, 2017). Improving water security is critical to securing the continuity and good quality of a potable water supply for the island’s population and to sustain its economic development.”

In addition, poor progress in waste water management implies greater risks of pollution of underground water.

Removing the excise duties and other charges on petroleum ?

Rishi Sunak is expected to cut fuel duty by at least 5p and is considering lifting tens of thousands of low earners out of paying national insurance altogether to help tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

France is also taking further action aimed at addressing the continued rise in fuel prices . “We are already protecting people in France with relation to gas prices," said Ecological Transition minister Barbara Pompili .

Why can’t we ?

Our fuel taxes are a tax on production as transport costs are an important element of the cost of production. Gasoline prices on the average over the past few years around the world show that our fuel prices are much higher than many of our competitive textile producers. Thus the fuel taxes are harming our industry’s competitiveness.

Moreover, fuel taxes are really just like another VAT that adversely affects the middle class and the poor. It increases the regressivity of our already unfair tax system impacting far more heavily on both the middle class and the poor. (The poor spend a larger portion of their income on driving than the rich do). It also has a trickle-down effect on inflation, higher fuel prices mean higher freight, and higher freight makes transportable goods more expensive thus driving up the prices of goods and services throughout the economy.

And a good chunk of the gains for the lower middle class and the poor via the populist measures of Minimum Wages , NIT and increase in the BRP have already been snatched away at the gas pump and by inflation.

So why can’t we reduce at least the excise duties and the other charges on petroleum ?

Because this regime's management of our public finances has been catastrophic. On the basis of our own estimates for Budget 2021-22, revenue may experience a shortfall of Rs 4 bn , expenses lower by some Rs 2 bn and capital expenditure by some Rs 6 bn. Thus the budget deficit will be lower by some Rs 4 bn; that is by -0.8% of GDP; the budget deficit may turn out around 4.2 % of GDP below the estimated 5%.

But if

- the Rs 8 bn of withdrawal of income from quasi corporations is considered as withdrawal of equity not revenue- Note: IMF GFS manual says that Funds withdrawn by liquidating large amounts of accumulated retained earnings or other reserves of the quasi-corporations are recorded as withdrawals from equity,

- expenses include the Rs 12 bn invested in Airport Holdings - a bail out like BAI, and not considered as equity and

- expenses also include other equity investments, especially Rs 2.4 bn in National Property Fund - continued BAI bail out.

the BUDGET DEFICIT SHOOTS UP TO MORE THAN -10% OF GDP.

(That will not necessarily raise debt by that amount ; on the contrary it will reduce debt. But, the underlying fiscal situation and our level of debt are not sustainable. We are among the top 5 African countries with the highest debt-to-GDP ratios.)

Please note that even if Govt is showing a limited budget deficit, excluding the above-mentioned items, in the current year by reaping revenue gains from taxation as consumption expenditures rise with inflation, this is likely to be short-lived. Govt expenditures are bound to increase in the coming financial years as a result of higher prices, but Govt will in the current budget try to ride on the delay between the inflation effects on govt revenue and expenditure.

As you see, Govt is doing everything, even manipulating the figures to ensure that its budget deficit and debt figures are on target, "sinon rotin bazar" from IMF and Moody’s….they have little choice; If they reduce the excise duties on petroleum, they will have to continue decreasing capital spending and raise taxes-increase VAT, introduce progressive taxes, a wealth tax and carry out some essential reforms on the expenses side...etc.

Will they have the guts to defy the 'Juncker Curse’ ?

"We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it."

(Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup. The Economist (2007), "The Quest for Prosperity", March 15th.)

Or is it more likely that some big populist policies/measures coming to fruition just in time for the election, given their recent efforts to build up a war chest -the commissions from Air Mts, housing and infrastructural projects and not to forget the off-budget special funds !!!

There is still hope for grassroots journalism !!!

“Never before has the so-called free world been deprived to this extent of full information, non-partisan analysis and the “other point of view”. For years, people who see themselves as liberals and democrats have railed against the firewalls that China erected around what its citizens are allowed to know, banning media like Facebook, Google, Twitter and The New York Times. But today, we who don’t live in China are also being firewalled and our access to information and different opinions is being cut off and most of us don’t even realize it.

Our knowledge about the world today is to a large extent controlled by a handful of media organizations, which trumpet their liberal values and claim to have zero-tolerance policies on misinformation. Yet, right now, they are acting as political instruments. I am certain that currently, common Russians have no access to any information that is not approved by Vladimir Putin and his men. But Putin’s Russia is an autocracy which scorns human rights and freedoms. We expect no better from it. Russians know this too. But when powerful corporations in the democratic world turn into propagandists for the countries where they are headquartered, it should worry us."

But there is still hope when we watch this Indian documentary “Writing With Fire” which earned a nomination in the Best Documentary Feature category for the 94th Academy Awards,2022 Oscars, becoming the only Indian film to earn a nod this year.

This rousing documentary follows the reporters of India’s only all-women news outlet as they pivot to digital journalism while battling personal and political challenges.

In a cluttered news landscape dominated by men, a group of women set up India’s only newspaper run entirely by women. All of them are from the lowest caste, Dalit, and are expected to fail, but instead they stir a revolution.This Oscar-nominated film follows chief reporter Meera and her team of journalists as they break with tradition to work on the frontlines of India’s biggest issues.

Find below this review published in the New York times in November of last year.

'Speaking Truth to Power

Several times in the documentary “Writing With Fire,” we see women reporters standing alone in a crowd of men — cops, miners, political rallyists — asking gentle but firm questions. The women’s grit in the face of palpable hostility is impressive, and it becomes more so when you learn that they’re in Uttar Pradesh, an Indian province known for crimes against women, and that they are Dalits, or members of the country’s so-called untouchable caste.

These are the reporters of Khabar Lahariya, India’s only women-led newspaper. In “Writing With Fire,” the directors Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh follow the outlet’s pivot to digital coverage in the lead-up to the general election in 2019. Many of the women have never used smartphones or cameras, and for much of the film, the reporters train each other and exchange feedback in heartening displays of sororal solidarity.Scenes from the reporters’ home lives emphasize how trivial these technical challenges seem compared to domestic ones.

Meera, a veteran, tough-as-a-nut journalist, was married at 14 and earned three degrees while raising her children; the feisty Suneeta cannot get married because her parents can’t afford the dowries charged by men who would not allow her to work.

But Thomas and Ghosh focus on arcs of resistance rather than repression, tracing how, as Khabar Lahariya’s YouTube channel rapidly gains followers, its stories achieve real results: a neglected town receives medical attention; a rapist is prosecuted. If the film’s brisk telling sometimes presents these victories as too easily won, it’s a necessary corrective to the skepticism the women still face (“They’re destined to fail,” Meera’s husband scoffs).

And at a time when the profession faces increasing dangers ....., the film’s faith in the powers of grassroots journalism is nothing short of galvanizing."

The Kashmir files

I’m keen to know their stand on the Kashmir files, the very people who raised the issue of Kashmir during the last election campaign , more eager on tapping their communal vote bank than promoting their development and governance agenda.

They are so caught up by their communal politics/scientific communalism that they are not even aware that the politics of dynasty, religion and opportunistic alliances no longer cuts ice with the electorate.

Didn't hear them, though so vocal about the double standards of the West on the Russian invasion of Ukraine !!! Sorry , the Russian "special operation in Ukraine " (sic)

The Kashmir files! - they are likely to dismiss it as another creation of them versus us ....of conspiracy theorists...

Added: An observation-from the vantage point of our much-desired, national dream of Mauritianism- on our hypocritical mores and petty politicisation of identity which actually divides rather than unites us. …there are more important issues that affect the daily lives of the Mauritian than taking up a complex foreign issue like Kashmir to assert one’s communal identity.

Note : lir today’s Hebdo, see how this newspaper glisse ça subtilement “mé mo pas coné si tou seki inn arrivé li vré “ and ‘un film controversé’ ; call it a Modi product and hang it! In many genocide cases-the indigenous people of Americas,Australia,Africa and Asia and recently Cambodia,Darfur, the Tutsis, the Armenians…it’s difficult/distressing for the perpetrators and their sympathizers to acknowledge/accept it!

We had hopes ....Putin and the West !!!

To a Friend

Tks for your consistent arguments which has led me to dig deeper to try to see the multiple sides to this complex issue . The little that I could make out -picking out the genuine pieces from the vast literature, mosty biased and partisan including some well-targeted misinformation stuff- is that our Kremlin bandit Putin is a creation of the West. ( During that period which they termed the “end of history” and glasnost, we are told now that Putin did make request to join the EU).

They are the good guys and he is the evil one and now we have to be grateful that they are tackling this "war criminal". This is “so deeply ingrained in our collective psyche that it masquerades as common sense.”

What about our bandit ? He played his role with perfection, according to the scripts drafted by the West. He fitted perfectly in the role they have cast for him, he played by their rules …”the politics of inevitability, its predictability, a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done.”

Did our despot in the Kremlin have a choice ? Yes, there was an alternative; he could have reassembled as much of the former Soviet Union as possible with Russia and creating a better interaction and fairer exchange system (less exploitative and more of sharing) that extends through all of the eastern European states that joined Nato from the 1990s onwards, built on compromise, on democratic principles , on sustainability, on broader societal objectives such as health ,happiness and inclusiveness...while promoting nuclear disarmament and the whole of Europe as a zone of peace,…and developing a credible alternative to the current global economic system.

He would have obtained overall support- including a major chunk of the developing world- to tackle the media conglomerates' indoctrination and misinformation and the growing imperialist tendencies of the West imposing their New World Order and asserting the subservience of Russia to western imperialism.

Russia failed us- it turned up to be a failed regime. Putin recoiled into the trap set for him by the West; thus only empire can justify his rule. "Russia’s commodity-dependent economy has fallen far behind Poland for example . It is a rentiers’ paradise. Today, those rentiers are Putin’s thugs and the Boris Yeltsin-era “oligarchs .”

The West ultimate goal is Russian destruction ; Putin will go down taking with him our audacity to have hoped that it could have been different if...

Watch out for the local scene where similarly our Machiavellic strategists will be trying to convince us that there is no alternative to "Juggernaut " and/or the dinosaurs propped by some young turks or vice versa...(the old guards playing by the same archaic rules, the politics of inevitability, never questioning the economic model of development or the communal divide..)...And we will end up as the "dindons de leur farces" , as usual !

11Rajni Rajoo, Cheeko Mauritius and 9 others

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Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin

On September 27, 2018, Yale's Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Poynter Fellowship for Journalism hosted Vladimir Pozner, the acclaimed Russian-American journalist and broadcaster.

Pozner spoke on the impact of US foreign policy towards Russia after the Soviet Union has been disbanded, and shared his opinions on a range of issues raised by the audience, from the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections, to Skripal poisoning, to the state of independent media in Russia and the US.

The politics of inevitability .

Timothy Snyder on the Myths That Blinded the West to Putin’s Plans

“Americans and Europeans were guided through the new century by a tale about ‘the end of history,’ by what I will call the politics of inevitability, a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done,” writes the Yale historian Timothy Snyder in his 2018 book, “The Road to Unfreedom.”

The central thesis of “The Road to Unfreedom” is that different understandings of the past, its myths, histories and memories create radically different politics. Snyder wrote the book as a way of understanding Vladimir Putin’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and the West’s response, but its argument has become only more salient in recent weeks. You can’t understand Putin’s recent invasion of Ukraine without understanding his metaphysical attachment to the era of empire, his mythological telling of Russian-Ukrainian history, and his semi-mystical construction of what constitutes the Russian nation.

But Snyder’s more radical argument is that the West is also operating under its own mythological understanding of time — one that is so deeply ingrained in our collective psyche that it masquerades as common sense. And that understanding the influence of the “politics of inevitability” is essential to make sense of everything from the West’s misreading of Putin’s motivations to the internal fracturing of the European Union to the decline of liberal democracy across the globe.

So that’s where we start: with the central myths at the heart of the modern Western project — and the blind spots they have created. But Snyder is also a renowned historian of European great-power conflict who has written six books entirely or partly about Ukraine. So we also discuss the chasm between the radicalness of European integration and the tedium of European governance, why Snyder thinks Putin’s invasion is fundamentally the product of a Russian identity crisis, Ukraine’s unique history as a battleground for a great-power war, how Ukrainian identity transcends ethnicity and language, why Western leaders and analysts consistently fail to decipher Putin’s intentions, the huge difference between a Russian nation premised on myth and a Ukrainian nation forged by collective action, how Ukrainian resistance could inspire a Western vision for the future and more.

A deeper and balanced conversation

PODCASTS.GOOGLE.COM

The Ezra Klein Show - Timothy Snyder on the Myths That Blinded the West to Putin’s Plans

“Americans and Europeans were guided through the new century by a tale about ‘the end of history,’ by what I will call the _politics of inevitability,_ a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothin...