New Issues and challenges

Le gratin of the public sector -always free for free lectures especially if there are from foreign experts - were all there in the front seats avidly imbibing those glimpses of insights on the need to reassess our strategies towards Asia which is gradually imposing itself as the “true engine of global growth”. The lecture of Professor Dan Quah of LSE did touch a chord.

Finance and Planning – Together or Apart?

Now that the need for a Planning Commission is being felt to achieve a proper cohesion in our vision, strategies and implementation capacities, the issue of the demerging of the planning division from MOFEE is again topical. With more reliance placed on government intervention than on markets, a new, specific and separate role for the planning Ministry/Commission,

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): more of a mess

In these very columns we had said it before that to give a semblance of correcting the private sector bias, a 2% tax was levied on the book profit of the corporate sector to be credited to a fund. We had said at that time that this policy, announced as a watershed in creating a CSR approach that is both voluntary and statutory with the prescribing requirements, is a mere ‘tick the box” approach ;

Titbits : A Question of Alliance!!!; The World Bank’s Doing Business Report; Worrying Trends ;Inflationary Pressures; A Question of Principles.

These days, it is not only our political class, but also the private sector, that seems to be less focused on issues that matter and more on the means needed to regain power or absolute power.

Titbits: Identity Politics; The EPZ sector: still fumbling; Zone d’Education Prioritaire (ZEP): Have we passed? ; Financial Times (FT): Lotto and Household Debt

Identity Politics

Today as the millennium heads towards its adolescence, it will be worthwhile to mark a pause and think hard on the Vicar-General criticism, in the context of his New Year’s message, of the “ rodère ek donère boute” syndrome present in our system. Should we be surprised that our whole system has degenerated to nothing but rodères boutes. Have we not tolerated, even encouraged them?

Titbits: Et tu Brute!!! ; Yellow Fever; Joint Management of Tromelin ; Stimulus Package Demystified; Purchasing power –Rs 420.

Et tu Brute!!!

There may be some sense in the theatricals of the Directors of our prestigious Central Bank (CB) -- making their show on the pavements of our Wall Street. But with a Deputy Governor leading it, it was much more than third-grade street drama. Et tu Brute, you seem to be leading the wrong flock of monetary policy neophytes who have morphed into potential sources of conflicts and giving rise to substantial governance issues -- the very ones who supported by their high-command are convinced that they have enough of angst to display it publicly. The former governor of the Reserve Bank of South Africa Tito Mboweni disagrees and he reminds us that “central banks are special institutions, almost as special as the judiciary, and their independence must almost be elevated to the same level as that of the judiciary.”

Unlocking the Budget Figures

This last budget of this government needs to be put in its proper context; it is its fourth budget that had as precursor the 2006/07 Budget which promised to usher in a new socio-economic model centred on global competitiveness to return the economy to higher growth paths and full employment.  This involves a transition from the obsolete and counterproductive preference-based development model to an environment of fully liberalized trade where no activities, be it for export or for import, are shielded from international competition.