Xavier-Luc Duval’s budget speech has been widely accused of lacking vision. That’s all very well and good, but what exactly do his detractors mean by that? For, in its own parochial way, his budget speech was in fact perfectly in line with how he sees the economy: from its tacit endorsement of the invisible hand of the market to the habitual smattering of social measures and references to incorrigible “pessimists”, Friday’s outing was pure Duval. In that sense, it perfectly embodied his vision. What’s surprising though, is that anyone expected anything different from the current minister of finance. The question that all these disgruntled bystanders should really be posing is, why he was allowed to unleash it on the country?

Let’s take a look at a seemingly anodyne proviso in Annex 1 regarding “rental for islets and sites with severe planning restrictions”. This clause affords for a 10% reduction of rental prices across the board.

The minister of finance has always been keen to exploit the tourism potential of the country’s islets, even those that are nominally nature reserves, and has enjoyed a well-documented outing on one northern islet in particular. Nature is in effect at man’s service, especially when it comes to extracting monetary gain from it. That he’s used the budget speech to alleviate the operating expenses of promoters who are “adding value” to our natural and cultural heritage is precisely what one expects of Xavier-Luc Duval. Leopards, spots, etc.

Another trademark manoeuvre consists of dressing the state up as a business facilitator. Why rue his lack of vision when this is his vision?

He nailed his colours to the mast ages ago, not that you’d know that going by the disapproving noises coming from his majority partner. It’s more than a little bemusing hearing Labour stalwarts privately reject any affi liation with Duval’s budget after the event, even though they probably suspected what he had been cooking all along. But because politics is a means of elevating hypocrisy to an art form, it’s more expedient to laud his predecessor than to question how Duval ended up with the fi nance portfolio in the first place. They know exactly why and, ultimately, a mediocre budget for the country in a time of challenge is a price they’re more than willing to pay to stay in power.

Perhaps a bit of introspection is in order. Not from that lot, mind you. No, it’s almost like ordinary Mauritians possess the only sane minds on the island.

Increasingly, they can be heard expressing a profound mistrust of politics and grave reservations about our model of economic development. This doesn’t mean that they’re getting more cynical rather that they’ve become accustomed to the cynicism of the ruling classes. And that, you see, is a far more momentous event than the damp squib we were sold last Tuesday.

Nicholas RAINER