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Much of what Sithanen mentioned in his intervention is already public knowledge -the money transferred from BoM’s capital reserves for the repayment of Govt’s external debt, the transfer of Rs 60 bn to Govt , the MIC transfer of Rs 25 bn to Govt, dressed up as an investment in Airports Holdings Ltd, a state-owned company, which enabled Govt to pay off Air Mauritius creditors, the recourse to central bank deficit financing , the imprudent fiscal management, and the manipulation of GDP and Budget figures & so on- due to the efforts and articles of some top economists while our Sithanen was either advising the Govt on helicopter money or hibernating ….it seems that it’s now that he is finally beginning to wake up to the enormity of the economic devastation caused by our Pada.
On MIC, Sithanen’s ambiguity-all bark and no bite- is troubling, despite advice from some experienced economists-Sameer Sharma among others-for a fully open, transparent, and independent forensic audit of MIC as well as restructuring options, from a foreign firm also specialized in helping distressed funds.
Sameer had warned us that vested interests were holding back an independent audit exercise which would have revealed the truly dismal valuation of the MIC, and exposed the role of courtiers and other professional firms in MIC lending. Getting rid of MIC correctly would help to tackle the recapitalisation of the Bank and an excellent means of shoring up credibility in the rupee, and convince IMF and Moody’s that BoM will never support fiscal profligacy again.
The queries on Avinash Gopee gave the impression of a sense of a certain unease in Sithanen's demeanour..... Is it because the failure to conduct a thorough forensic audit of MIC is raising public apprehensions about power of money politics, as many MIC beneficiaries are known to have funded all political parties?
On his son involvement in some of the MIC deals , Sithanen avoids some of the ethical dilemmas by pulling up the convenient adage ”nous ne somme pas contre les critiques main il ne faut pas dénigrer les gens par des faussetés”, indeed, a very shrewd way of avoiding an answer, when you are been knocked onto the ropes, is to throw the ball back to your opponents!
On the "grandes réussites de la banque de Maurice”, we are having some doubts . The current rates at which the rupee is being traded nowadays are artificial... At the Regulator's request banks are factoring external movements but not factoring in the domestic supply-demand imbalance. The evidence is that it is near to impossible to get USD at the counter whether at a Bank or a FX dealer ; the forex shortage is chronic, and informal exchange rationing by banks is as pervasive as before; we are supposed to have liberalised FX controls…
We still have a long way to go before we can claim that we have succeeded in stabilising the rupee; for the moment “les réussites" are nothing but just all so much of hot air….
And the MIC’s winding down, à la Sithanen, is turning out to be a gruesome exercise of peeling a horrible onion. As you start peeling back the layers , you start uncovering a complex web of deceit and shocking deals that extend far beyond the surface which our FCC is struggling to decipher. It may take years !
And no government seems to believe that it is in their interest to shake it off.
Then bear the consequences !
AuthorFrom a friend: Mo ase konn sinema media ek zournalis dan nou pei. Se enn interview ‘plante’ pou sirtou Sithanen gagn lokazion vinn defann li lor so bann konfli dinteré ek so garson . Ban lezot sizé MIC, MK etc se zis diversion..
Si li trouv Adam ( Menlo Park , Apex, Thomas Cook etc ) so afidavi fos, li bizin al zir enn kontr afidavi ek pourswiv Adam. Li pa vinn lor radio pou fer sa. Li pa rol enn Gouverner la Bank Santral pou donn interview ek koz lor tou sa ban lezot zafer la . Li ti kapav al lor MBC plito. Sithanen chouchou bann intello ek média, personn pa pou denons so manipilasyon
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Shivam Anadachee
I agree with you .he was back pedalling . Making convoluted turn .
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Sameer Sharma
I hesitate to blame the current team because all this mess is not something a central bank should be dealing with and they have a tough job ahead. The reality is that the bom balance sheet will see big losses if you mark badly priced and structured assets to market. I think the current team at the BoM get the gravity of the situation to be fair but the issue is implementation. This is a field where you need to be very seasoned
It's private debt and equity and it's distressed assets. The management of such assets should be outsourced to foreign professionals with zero conflicts of interest.
Assets need to be mark to market and sold at a deep discount to a levered spv funded by banks and govt which will be managed by an independent and professional team of experts with a clear mandate and KPIs in my view. Firms like alavez and martial can do this for a fee. Can't be penny wise and pound foolish here.
Bom will make losses yes by selling assets at a discount and equity will drop but we need to be realistic about the value of the rupee. No point in saying rupee is stable when you cant get dollars at that rate.
There is no such thing as a painless adjustment from padanomics
Also just focusing on 45 million rupee deals and a few others is not enough ... these convertible bonds are all badly structured and I do want to know why and who the advisors were and why the super star ic signed off on such one sided deals. There is more rot out there. I also don't buy the argument that the land is not over valued. Go and sell it in bulk then and see.
There are no buyers for this at scale. You need to discount
.. there is no exit ....
So it's just not like having a Mauritian land valuer putting some value per ha there and voila. OK Mr valuer go and sell it then... find the buyer for 7bn of land assets and let's see
Lastly don't get me started with the former mic board all there for a reason
One guy was a former fraudster in banking managing a credit fund everyone knows ...
Another is a middle man of the private sector
Others were pada friends
It was a joke of a board and this investment comm they had ... Noone even had experience in buying treasury bills and were doing private debt and thought they were sovereign wealth fund managers ... insane stuff
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Prak Nee
Political financing is the basis of the corruption at MIC. Corporate beneficiaries of MIC assistance or investment have very likely funded all major political parties. That’s why there is so much hesitancy to enquire on the circumstances under which Rs56 billion were dished out to corporations. Confidentiality of bank transactions is a flimsy excuse to hide the truth. Until there is a law to regulate political finance, corporations will continue to get public funds (MIC or otherwise) in exchange for the funds they provide to politicians. And it is no coincidence that the same person heads two regulatory bodies (FSC and BOM) in order to make sure that corporations get what they want both in the banking and non banking sectors. Mauritius is the only country probably where the governor of a central bank is also the financial regulator. In advanced countries, these are two separate and independent functions held by different people. It is a basic tenet of good governance that a concentration of power ( monetary regulation and financial regulation) in the hands of one person is a recipe for conflicts of interest and corrupt practices. All the talk about transparency and accountability from the new government is complete bullshit if two regulators (BOM and FSC) cannot act independently from each other. What’s different from what the previous government was doing?
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Harishchandra Lesage
sithanen pas fine addresse sa voler protection de maitresse savate dodo et de tamil mafia ki fine beneficiier de MIC et p encore beneificier ....nou pas ti p atane autrement ..parski li pas aussi bete pou vine devoile connection so garson avec CEO Medine , CEO Mdine so soeur ine rentre par límposte dans BOM comme haut cadre et fam la so mari ine rentre dans Board Mauritius Deposit Insurance Co.....et lot coter ene ploc couma kadress pillay p coz meritocracie ....
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Shivam Anadachee
Meme film meme role , juste titre fine changer.
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Rajni Rajoo
Can a government that has been "in business" before, operating by the same terms as the previous one really have the freedom to do what need to be done?
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Gautamaḥ Chalasani
Are we prepared for de dollrisation, in few years $£€, will be very less in value, then what is the plan, as we depends on $£€(tourists) and selling properties to expats
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Nalini Burn
Corporate men and some women occupying everywhere the public economics and resource mobilisation places. The financial business model template applied by a Labour, MMM ReA government, with institutions like BOI, morphed into EDB, and ministry of economic planning appended with financial sector. What model in the driving seat to fit in the battle of the lobbies, based more on identity politics?
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