Those hoping that the budget speech is going to magically smoothen out the structural and conjectural defi ciencies hobbling the economy should think again. Sure, it’ll contain the usual smattering of goodies for the private sector and grandiloquent yet hollow gestures for the poor, but there is no reason to believe that the minister of finance will break from the norm. Waiting for the budget with baited breath is simply an exercise in delaying the inevitable if not outright futility. If anything, Xavier-Luc Duval will probably be even more generous than his predecessors when it comes to ticking the wish lists of employers. But as we’ve seen countless times before, this alone will do little to improve the macroeconomic situation. For as long as we
refuse to question certain fundamentals we’ll have to hope that halfmeasures turn into miracles.

This is not naysaying. The world has changed a great deal since Mauritius surprised all and sundry by proving academia’s dire predictions for its economy stunningly wrong. Not only has globalization thrown a World Trade Organization-sized spanner into the works, but most of our main sectors have reached maturity, meaning that it’s far more difficult now to extract value from them than it was a couple of decades ago. Making the leap from a middle to high income economy is going to take a lot more innovation and nous than was needed to move from a low to a middle income economy. All the more so given that we can no longer count on preferential trade agreements to boost margins and the rampant politicization of every sphere of life is killing the country’s vitality. To all intents and purposes, we’re on our own.

And the only existing sector that’s showing a promising potential for growth, financial services, is predicated, in its current form at least, upon certain highly dubious, if legal, practices. As recently as last Tuesday, European MP Eva Joly, told RFI how an investigation into the rapacious exploitation of Zambia’s copper resources had revealed how the revenue was spirited out of the country via a “tax haven”, namely Mauritius. Of the $3 billion generated by the industry, only $50 million remained in Zambia. Do we really want to base our future on aiding and abetting corporations bent on bleeding the developing world dry? If yes, then we’re certainly on the right track. In the meantime, our lifeblood – land - is being frittered away as real estate and we’ve outsourced the exploitation of our EEZ to foreign countries.

If there’s one thing worth knowing about the budget is that the hoi polloi will be footing the bill for whatever incentives Xavier-Luc Duval hands out to employers. Indeed, the current fi scal regime has been designed to minimize direct taxes on the wealthy in favour of indirect taxes on the masses. So basically the middle and lower classes are carrying the weight of the country. And as long as they get a raw deal, we’re condemning Mauritius to a form of entropy.

Nicholas RAINER