This week it is exactly one year since the Alliance de l’Avenir came to power so there is talk about the track record of this government. What has it achieved according to you?

It’s important to remember that we campaigned for the 2010 elections on a platform of continuity because, between 2000 and 2005, the Labour Party carried out an exercise in evaluating and dissecting our society and in defining the economic and social model that we think is most suitable for it. And we came up with proposals for fairly deep socio economic reform that we started implementing as soon as we won the elections in 2005. The implementation of this societal vision of the Prime minister, Dr Navin Ramgoolam, is still ongoing.

We’ve heard a lot about these reforms but what do they mean in concrete terms?

In concrete terms, there was a need for an overhaul of the economic structure of the country through the democratisation of the economy.

Something we’ve heard a lot about too but which we still do not understand.

Well, it’s very simple: if we take the year 2000 as a cut off date, we realize that while over the 30 or so years since independence, we have made a major headway in the broadening of the democratic space and social protection. We were still living in a fairly closed system which didn’t leave a lot of opportunity for others especially in the field of business.

When you say others, you mean the ones who don’t belong to the 13 families?

(Laughs) When I say others, I mean other people than the traditional and historical investors and entrepreneurs. We didn’t invent the term 13 families. Paul Bérenger did. And as the prime minister said last Sunday in the 1st May meeting, we are still waiting for Paul Bérenger to name those 13 families.

Do his figures tally with yours?

The 13 families of those days may have shrunk to probably five due to the phenomenon of concentration of detention of wealth. Money breeds money. Since independence, the system we have seen is simply a recycling of sugar money, from sugar to the hotel industry, to industry in general, to offshore, to banking to trade, to services, etc etc.

It is really as simple as that?

Yes, in broad terms it is as simple as that. I mean when a new channel of business opportunity opens up, who can invest in that opportunity other than those who have the money to invest? Unless you break up that system and loosen up all the screws, access to that system is going to remain out of bounds for most people. Just look at what is happening in the hotel industry, for example. Of course it is sugar money which has been recycled into the hotel industry and the mentality of sugar cane plantations of the pre-colonial days as well has been transferred into the hotels.

The mentality?

Yes, you fi nd in the hotels the same mentality as that of the sugar estates in the 1950s. Look at the way people are treated, the salaries and the glass ceiling that prevents Mauritian managers, except for those belonging to a particular category, from climbing above a particular rank.

What have you done to break that glass ceiling and what you seem to describe as slavery?

The whole of this imbalance in the economic system has its roots in our colonial history. You know, this ethnic partitioning, literally akin to apartheid []and I am not afraid of using the word] and the economic structure of inequity which maintains it was put in place over a period for 300 years. And, of course, nobody can uproot that system in five, ten or even fifteen years.

 Yes, but you keep talking about the democratization of the economy. Tell me in concrete terms how you have improved our lot through this democratisation?

OK, fi rst of all, we have the rule of law in this country. We have a constitution and institutions and this government and the prime minister are respectful of institutions and of the law. So we cannot do anything that will go against the law.

The constitution states very clearly the respect for private property and private enterprise. So this is a given.

We cannot go against that. We do not believe in nationalising, we do not believe in dispossessing people of their assets or of their wealth.

If you cannot modify the situation why talk about democratisation?

Let people enjoy their wealth in peace.

I am not saying we can’t modify the situation. But we have to do so through a mixture of legislation and incentives. And, of course, we need not only adequate government policy but also the good will of the private sector to work together towards that.

The 13 or 5 families?

Yes, the 13 or 5 families need to share our vision of Mauritius so that we can achieve this. Without a minimum of convergence, we cannot do anything. Otherwise, we will head for conflict and this is never desirable.

Have they shown that they share that vision? What happened to the negotiations for the reform of the sugar sector?

In the reform of the sugar sector, we did not see much collaboration from the private sector. You will recall that the government asked the sugar cane sector to make some concessions, including ceding some land to the state and opening up its shareholding, in return for receiving funds from the European Union.

This land would be used partly for the construction of social housing and partly for the development of the new type of farming agriculture.

In this context, the private sector also had to cede a 35% holding in sugar cane mills, in refineries, in distilleries and in the energy sector (the IPPs).

How did the private sector react to the government’s proposals?

They just sat on them hoping that the reform would still take place without their making any concession at all.

They eventually agreed. Now where is the land?

The land is there, available. We have already distributed 250 arpents.

We were talking about 2000!

The agreement that we have is for 2000 arpents to be transferred over a period of 10 years. It was never meant to be given straight away.

Besides, when we say that we are going to use the land for agricultural purposes, we have to see what is needed to cultivate potatoes, tomatoes or to breed cattle etc. Not every piece of land is suitable for every type of cultivation a soil analysis has to be carried out. You need to know whether the land is good for a particular type of cultivation. Then you have to carry out procedures for the transfer of the land. If you have sugar cane on the land, you have to wait for the harvest before carrying out land surveying.

We have so far distributed 250 arpents to various cooperatives, companies and associations. The same constraints, though of a different technical nature, apply to land to be used for housing.

 Was there any polemic about the distribution of this land?

Not to my knowledge. Not until now.

Were people satisfied that those who got the land were the most deserving?

I don’t know. The Ministry of Agro-Industry carried out an exercise in 2008 sending its technicians to various parts of the country asking people who were interested in having access to land through that scheme to prepare a project and send it to the Ministry. According to my information, the Ministry received proposals for about 4000 or 5000 arpents of land whereas we had only 1000 to distribute. So a process of selection had to be done on the basis of a number of criteria like the seriousness of the project, the financing capacity etc.

What about on other fronts -after one year in power, is there anything that your government has to show in terms of the democratization of the economy?

Of course, heaps of things.

Look at the number of the pieces of legislation voted in parliament like the Business Facilitation Act 2006, which has simplified the process of doing business. Add to that the Competition Act and the Competition Commission - there is no way the national economy can operate in a fairly free way unless you have legislation which favours competition and fights cartels and monopolies.

There was the need to legislate for a Competition Commission, which has been set up and in operation for nearly one year.

Are you satisfied with its performance?

We have to give it time. There may be teething problems, which is normal for a new institution, but in my opinion they are doing a good job.

 You are talking about the achievements of the previous government. I am talking about this one.

Our campaign was based on continuity. OK, there may be a few things we needed to change like doing away with the National Residential Property Tax (NRPT), which has been done.

Was it because it was felt to have been a mistake?

Not necessarily a mistake. What seems good at one moment in time may not be good at another.

 At what moment in time isn’t it good for people who own their homes and earn above a certain salary to pay?

(Laughs) Of course fiscality is a good thing. Of course you can’t tax people who have no money you tax only those able to pay.

Why was the tax suppressed then?

Because the hassle was not worth the amount of money that it brings in. There is always a balance to be kept. There may be a measure which brings some benefi t to government and through bringing benefit to the government benefits everybody collectively. But there is a case for balancing an act of taxation with the perception and degree of satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction that people may have with it.

Isn’t that balancing act called “populism”? You introduce a tax and because it is perceived as being negative, you scrap it.

I think democracy also has to do with keeping people happy and preserving the cohesion of society. We are living in a consensual and diverse society, perhaps one of the most diverse societies in the world. We have to build and maintain consensus.

But if every time a decision which is unpopular is scrapped, how will government fill its coffers and maintain the welfare state?

Government does introduce measures which are unpopular and sticks to them.

Like the ten rupees charged to visit some of our islands?

I personally do not believe that any national should pay to set foot on a piece of land which is part of national sovereignty. I would, however, be in total agreement if that 10 or 20 rupee fee were to be accompanied by a service. But you don’t pay 10 rupees to set foot on land which belongs to the state and therefore the people of Mauritius. I cannot agree with such a measure.

Another polemic took place over what Paul Bérenger called the “Mega Scandal”. How mega was it according to you?

Well, first of all, it’s typical Paul Bérenger. This is the Sheik Hossen affair all over again. Neotown has to do with prime land which is for the moment lying dormant.

A very important global investor comes in and proposes a project to develop that land into a new part of the city with sizeable office buildings, promenades, luxury apartments, a hotel, leisure amenities etc. It took this project three or four years to go through the procedures of being approved by government. Any simpleton will agree that if it took three to four years, it was very carefully analysed and evaluated before being leased to that particular company.

That’s fine. But why make so many concessions?

Here we have a parallel with JinFei: we shouldn’t believe, despite being proud of being Mauritians, that the whole world is queuing up to do business in Mauritius. We are living in a competitive world.

We have to make concessions for people to come here, invest, create jobs and create value in this country. Global investors like Patel Engineering are willing to invest somewhere between 17 and 18 billion rupees in Neotown. No sensible government would overlook that sort of investment. It is understandable that the company will negotiate for conditions and, if those conditions are found to be acceptable, which has been the case, the agreement is signed.

Does the agreement include changing the law as recorded in the minutes of the board meeting of Patel Engineering.

For the law to be changed, it has to go through parliament. Neither you nor we are aware of any law having been changed in that respect. Everything has been done according to existing legislation and conditions. For us, the macro economic interests of Mauritius coincide with the business interests of Patel Engineering it is the same for JinFei and for a number of other foreign investors.

If Patel Engineering is trying to persuade its partners and board members that this is a good business opportunity, that is their call.

They are free to say what they like in their board meetings. You are free to go and look at the Hansard and check whether any law has been changed.

You mean they are free to lie?

I am in no position to pass a value judgment. But stating that laws have been changed is not true. No law has been changed. A number of inaccurate things were said during that conference call as there might have been other things said by other companies in other circumstances.

The reason we know about this one is because there was a leak. We don’t know about the others.

The reason we don’t know is because we don’t have a freedom of information act. I don’t know why there is so much apprehension about introducing it.

There is no apprehension. The prime minister has clearly said that the act will be brought in as soon as some issues have been settled, such as the privacy aspect of it.

I don’t think that the legislation should be a piece of spontaneous half-baked legislation. It has to be properly thought out. This is what the PM has said. Then the necessary steps will be taken.

What after-taste did May Day leave in the mouth of the Labour Party?

An excellent one! The MMM carried out at least 25 mini meetings across the country and they drew a crowd of 4000 to 5,000 according to police estimates. Our crowd exceeded 10,000, was very diverse and included more than 60% of young people. That is very important.

This confirms that we are coming up with new ideas, unlike the MMM which has not come up with a single proposal or meaningful idea to change policy in the country over the past 10 years. We have not only come up with heaps of ideas but have also implemented them.

The prime minister spent a large part of his speech attacking L’express directly. Is that what May Day is now about?

It is very clear that L’express is not fair to us. And it’s nothing new. You might recall that when Paul Bérenger was due to become PM in 2003, l’express was literally exploding exclusively with that particular piece of news.

But it WAS newsworthy, wasn’t it?

Yes, it is fair because it is newsworthy. But the headline read as if Paul Bérenger was the icon of democracy and that every prime minister before him was somehow illegitimate or had got to power through anti-democratic means.

This is very telling. That was eight years ago. Between 2000-2005, there was not one single article critical of the economic management of this country despite Paul Bérenger himself saying that the country was going through an economic crisis -while he himself was prime minister.

When there is an economic crisis it is reported on. It is not necessarily the fault of the PM. Sometimes, there are outside factors.

What outside factors? Petrol was cheaper, our rupee was stable, all of our markets were booming, the international situation was good.

Yet, we lost 55,000 jobs in that period. You did not report on that, did you?

Isn’t it a matter of perception? Whenever we say something good you never see it. The moment we criticise, you come out in droves and cry wolf. It was the same with Paul Bérenger when he was in power. The only difference is that he did not execute his threats. Your government did.

We are democrats. We do accept that people can be critical of us. However, we require a degree of fairness. You owe it to us.

Touria Prayag