“Weekly speaks to Vijay Makhan, former foreign secretary and member of the ‘Mouvement Militant Mauricien’ (MMM). He talks about the state of the MMM, the rumours of ‘kos koser’ with the government and gives his evaluation of the latter’s performance so far.”

Nearly two years after its very harsh defeat, how bad is the situation for the MMM?

We can't say the situation is bad. To be frank, we have gone through a very bad patch – it would be dishonest on my part not to say that. After the debacle of December 2014, it took us some time to really get up. Now we are back on our feet.

What are the signs that you are back on your feet?

The fact that you are here shows that you give some credit to the MMM for being up. The MMM is here to stay and persevere. We have made mistakes, no doubt about it, and we have paid for that, but those supporters who had left us are coming back. That is a fact.

When you talk about mistakes, aren't you making the same mistake again with the 'koz kozer' which seems to be starting again between the MMM as an opposition party and the government?

We do politics in what we perceive as the larger interest of the country. If there are times when we are seen to be accommodating some of the views of the government, that does not necessarily mean that we are involved in koz kozer. For example, the Chagos is an issue that should transcend all party political considerations and everybody should be on the same board for the same objective. Now if we do that, it does not mean we are trying to woo the government.

I understand that for a national issue like Chagos, all political parties should come together, but should it be an excuse every time there is a rapprochement between government and the opposition? Surely the Private Notice Questions (PNQs) should not be restricted to that?

At the time that PNQ was put, the Chagos was a matter of grave concern for the country and you know why. It was important that we got the information required for the public and also for those who are following us from abroad. You should not be seeing things that do not exist.

What you are telling me is that there is no talk of any rapprochement between the MSM and MMM.

There is talk but no rapprochement. When we talk, we talk about issues of concern to the country but there is no political rapprochement at this point in time if this is what you mean.

But you are not ruling out a possible rapprochement scenario, are you?

We live in a dynamic situation. Politics is not static and therefore I cannot answer a question about what lies ahead tomorrow. As things stand, the MMM is geared towards regrouping, strengthening and consolidating itself with a view to going to the next election alone.

With Paul Bérenger as prime minister?

Yes.

Who will be the deputy prime minister?

I can't tell you that. The MMM has given Bérenger the liberty to choose his number 2.

Who is he likely to choose?

I don't know. Zouberr Joomaye has been candid and in an interview when he said, “even Vijay Makhan, why not?”

Don't you think that when Bérenger announces his deputy, he will alienate some members of the party who were hoping to get that position?

When you jump into a venture like politics, there are those who have overstretched ambitions and those who have legitimate ones. People may wish or aspire but that does not mean that everyone’s aspirations will be achieved. Not everybody can become a leader, deputy or secretary general. Now, if not being given a title means that some will leave the party, so be it!

Why announce the deputy now?

Probably to put an end to all this speculation which may cause demobilisation.

Your leader could just have denied any rapprochement and continued to play his role as a robust opposition leader. He didn’t.

The political history of this country has always been the art of making the impossible possible. It’s been like that throughout history. How can you expect somebody who does not have a crystal ball to say what is going to happen tomorrow?

When you sit back and look at what the government has done for two years, what is your verdict?

They haven’t done anything. There is nothing that they have done which is worth mentioning. They have managed to change the minister of finance three times. They managed to clip the wings of a few other ministers. Some of the other ministers don’t even know that they are ministers.

What do you mean they don’t know that they are ministers?

They don’t know what to do or what their responsibilities are. Have you ever seen a minister taking scuba diving equipment and going down to see what is happening in the ocean? There was another one going around in helicopters. He thinks that if he goes around in a helicopter, the disasters will disappear. There is another one whose ego is so inflated that even the TV screen would not contain his body. What else do they have to show for themselves? British American Investment (BAI)? They’ve managed to destabilise the entire system. Investors now have cold feet. What’s wrong with this country?

How about Roshi Bhadain’s achievement of securing a Rs12.7 billion grant from India?

Please. We are all adults. Yes, he makes a lot of noise but he doesn’t tell us what we have lost. If the ‘grant’ is an “OK, you suffered so please take this”, is that an achievement?

Yes, if you negotiate it.

How did they negotiate it? Did we go there and say to the Indians, please give us some money? I think we should credit the Indians with more intelligence than that. It wasn’t negotiated on its own as far as we know. If it was, send out a joint communiqué saying that the Mauritius government and the Indian government have sat down and decided that India would be pleased to grant Rs12.7 billion of the Indian taxpayers’ money to Mauritius for them to squander. Please. Give us a break.

But the money is there.

Yes. What it has managed to do is bring down the percentage of deficit that we have. I think that what we should ask is what do you do after you’ve squandered your Rs12.7 billion.

Bérenger put a very important question in parliament last Wednesday and we were waiting for the answer and suddenly he said he did not want to put the question anymore because it is Pravind Jugnauth who should answer it.

Of course, and he is absolutely right. The State Land Development Company Ltd (SLDC) falls under the direct authority of the Ministry of Finance. Now, if you are the minister of finance and you don't know how much has been paid, then who would know? It's the minister of finance and not the minister of good governance or whoever who should answer.

But what's the relevance of that? As long as we get the answers...

Look, on Friday, Bérenger asked the minister of finance a question related to what he had said in his budget speech. He decided that it should be the minister of social integration or whoever who answers it. It's not right. You should credit the leader of the opposition – not the person, but the institution –  who is asking and knows where the question should go. You can’t pass it on to other ministers unless you are scared or don't feel confident enough to be able to face the music. Mr. Bhadain had said that in view of the report from Gérard Sanspeur, he had decided that the credibility of the whole project had been undermined and therefore he had asked the prime minister to shelve the whole project. And then the question is put to the minister of finance and he sends it to the same person who had said "no, take it away".

But the question is about cost, the money spent...

Yes, and it is the minister of finance who holds the purse. He is the one who sanctions payments.

Be that as it may, Bhadain tabled all the answers that Bérenger was looking for.

Good for him.

And Bérenger missed the opportunity to ask supplementary questions…

Who says? There are other means. Bérenger is a seasoned parliamentarian. He can teach the speaker a thing or two about the standing orders and even the seating orders. It's our money. We have paid somebody and we don't know what he has done. We need to know. This is not the end of the matter. There is a Mauritian firm that had been commissioned to look at the larger picture then this Heritage City came and they decided to remove a chunk of the whole project and give it to Stree Consulting. Everybody asked the fellow [Bhadain] questions but he never answered.

He said the information was confidential because it's a government-to government-agreement with Dubai. I didn't know by the way that Dubai was a government...

There you are! The answer is in your question.

The ‘government’ of Dubai as they call it, recommended Stree Consulting to oversee the Heritage City project. Does that not convince you?

Not at all. If it is government-to-government, you can issue a tender so that all firms that are there can bid for it, then if Stree Consulting gets it, well done. The United Arab Emirates government cannot decide that the project should go to one firm!

The government campaigned particularly on transparency and good governance and they set up a Ministry of Good Governance. Has that helped towards good governance?

(Laughs) You appoint people in your department or sector falling under your jurisdiction on your own without advertising any position and without looking at their experience just because they were your pals and you call this good governance? Is it good governance to nominate people who are not qualified and who do not even know what job they applied for? There is something called collective responsibility.

What is the objective of the government?

I don't know. Do they really have one? Less than two years from their brilliant election results and they have managed to change three ministers, appoint two ministers of foreign affairs who are more foreign to the affairs than the affairs are foreign to them and all we know is how gold is very important in this world. I mean, really. Where are we headed? Well, you get the government you deserve.

Do you also get the economy you deserve?

I will answer that question with another question: Does the government have the competence required to run this country?

What is the answer?

In all fields, the answer is no. The MMM-Labour Party alliance never expected to lose the election, the Lepep alliance never expected to win and the electorate never expected that the results would be what they were. In the final analysis, everyone was surprised! This is why we have this kind of ramassis (hotchpotch). It’s a Ramassis United that is leading this country.

Do you think a cabinet reshuffle would improve things?

No. They are all incompetent and they know it. However, they can buy some time. They can say, ‘let’s give this chap another six months to settle down so that his body can espouse the contour of the new chair he has inherited’. In the meantime, the economy will take a hard beating. The indicators are not positive and they are getting worse. Look at the foreign direct investment. Look at the savings rate.

Will the capital expenditure announced in the budget not reignite the economy?

There are only two projects that Pravind Jugnauth mentioned in his budget: Heritage City and the Metro Express. They changed the name and it became new. We are very good at that in Mauritius. Heritage City is not going ahead and I don’t know about the Metro Express. It sounds more like a coffee than a project.

Now stop criticising and suggest a solution.

If the present government has its ears on the ground, it should start listening to what people are saying. To set the country on the right path, you have to have a vision which is fixed. You cannot keep shifting goals and firefighting. If you don’t have the capacity and means to have a vision, then give back the tablier (apron).

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