“Are you allowed to buy dollars?” asked the daily, Le Mauricien, of minister of finance, Xavier Duval. The question was asked in the wake of Duval’s move to call for bids from banks to buy US $100 million. This decision came after Duval had blamed the Bank of Mauritius for his poor economic performance. Remember? He said had the rupee been stronger, this year’s growth would have increased by one point. (Oh and Governor Bheenick said he thought Duval was being funny.)

You know what Duval’s reply was? “It’s the ministry of finance’s bank account. No one can stop us from using our bank account.” Read that sentence again and take the full measure of Duval’s arrogance and his sense of entitlement. He might as well have said, “It’s my money and I can do with it what I please.”

It’s not the ministry of finance’s money it’s our money. This money is derived from our taxes, direct and indirect and very indirect. There are laws that govern the use of public funds and still, Duval tells you no one can stop him from using “his” money in “his” bank account.

I don’t know what’s worse however - the arrogance or the utter bad faith. Confirming he did call for bids to buy 100 million worth of US dollars, Duval says he didn’t do it to attempt to artificially weaken the rupee. He did what he did only to make “the taxpayer’s money earn interest”. The fact that the rupee weakened as a result of the ministry of finance becoming a market player in the forex market was, according to Duval, only “a secondary effect”.

I love the coincidence of secondary effects. The day before, he blames Bheenick for what he calls a strong rupee and two days later, the rupee weakens as a direct result of the ministry’s intervention and Duval dares call this a “secondary
effect”?

That’s why you didn’t read Xavier Duval’s interview in l’express our dear minister doesn’t take kindly to scrutiny. It upsets him. And makes him forget he is accountable, the more so as he is dealing with our fortune.

For Duval’s reaction to criticisms is that those who criticise “don’t understand anything”. Isn’t he a dear? We can’t only blame Duval though I suppose he gets his devil-maycare attitude from his leader. Navin Ramgoolam happily explained in Rodrigues why he chose not to go to Rodrigues for the celebration of the island’s autonomy and why he eventually turned up three weeks later. The trip had been planned a month before, he said, stressing that he was giving this information in reply to what “some journalists in Mauritius have said”.

Why then not give the information prior to the actual event? Why give it later and then say “as usual, they (journalists) don’t know anything” especially as the taxpayer has been funding an “adviser in communication matters” for Ramgoolam for some time now?

It boils down to accountability, you see. And they hate that word.

deepa BHOOKHUN