September 2022, Renganaden Padayachy, our dear Padaleski, the Finance Minister of Mauritius, received the "African Finance Minister of the Year" award at the UK House of Lords. The award was presented by African Leadership Magazine. The recognition highlighted his contributions to the finance sector in Africa.
LePep learned about their antics later. For most of us , it was an award for non-performance.
One was the chatwa par excellence of the MSM regime, Pada’s poodle, just following orders. The other, with his henchmen at MoFED, MRA and SM, made his name by printing money, bestowing us with double digit inflation and cooking up figures about the economy.
Now we have ,Rama Sithanen, Governor of the Bank of Mauritius (BoM) since November 2024, who has been named joint winner of African Leadership Magazine's “Central Bank Governor of the Year 2025” award. "The award recognizes leadership in strengthening monetary stability, financial resilience and economic growth."
What ?
Strengthening monetary stability:
The market remains volatile due to excess liquidity, and the new monetary policy framework is yet to be fully effective. Consequently, the interbank (market) rate is not aligned with the Bank’ s key policy rate. The monetary policy stance is not tight enough to stabilise the rupee and forex market conditions.
The IMF has repeatedly recommended strengthening the implementation of the monetary policy framework and reinforcing its credibility.
Pa pé strengthen di tou !!!!
Financial resilience:
How can we be financially resilient when we have a chronic foreign exchange shortage and a Governor who is still groping to find his way out of a rigged FX market where the FX is being rationed. He is undermining confidence in the free convertibility of the rupee and not sending the right signals to restore confidence in the short term. Moreover , our level of foreign reserves is just close to the lower bound of the recommended benchmark range for adequate reserve cover. IMF had also urged the central bank to bolster foreign reserves buffers to guard against external shocks.
Kot resilience ? Zis ALM ki pé truv resilience !
Economic growth: Growth may be lower than 3.3% in 2025 given the present dismal performance in the tourism sector and a bulging current account deficit.
Kot Growth, pé dégonflé !
ALM forgot to mention Mauritius Investment Corporation(MIC)...an MIC that seems to have got stuck down our Governor’s throat…
We are still waiting for a proper, independent audit of the MIC, which has made private sector investments exceeding Rs 25 billion and the plans for BoM to gradually phase out its ownership of the MIC.
A present revaluation of the MIC will surely worsen the public debt burden. Is that what our Governor is trying to avoid ?
So we will not get a full measure of the overall fiscal adjustment needed ?
Pé manipule sifs a la Padaleski !
So it’s true then that ALM recognises non-performers, chatwas and cheaters.
