Alright, alright, the previous government ministers did not communicate well. Alright, they paid a high price for it. But, for Heaven’s sake, let’s not go to the other extreme!

Jockeying to get maximum media exposure and overshadowing his colleagues, the minister of environment and national emergency centre, Raj Dayal, is everywhere and every step he undertakes is followed by the media. He is at Canal Dayot two days before Christmas, giving instructions to clean river beds – an operation which, by the way, has been going on ever since the last flash flood.  He resurfaces on Christmas Eve, substituting himself for the Beach Authority, with an announcement about building public toilets on public beaches and limiting the use of deckchairs on public beaches.  He reappears in Quatre Soeurs, two days later, where he declares the government’s intention to build a shelter for disaster-stricken people in times of crisis. 

Then came the cyclone and what a bonanza! Meetings with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Committee – a routine meeting which has never attracted any media attention became a national event making the headlines and Dayal is hailed as a new messiah of crisis management. The stroke of marketing genius went one step further when Dayal intervened on a private radio and started giving the cyclone trajectory – previously done by officers at the Meteorological Services – and had time to promise a different type of shelter and hot meals for the cyclone refugees before the radio host managed to politely cut him off. 

In the publicity blitz that the cyclone had become, and in the race to hog the limelight, Aurore Perraud, minister of gender equality, child development and family welfare, also publicly weighed in on everything from what protocols there are in what cyclone warning, down to how hot meals can only be served during a class 3 cyclone. I mean, these are ministers!

In the meantime, bitter complaints from the people strewn across the same community centres and village halls on the same crude and basic mattresses kept coming on the same radios that Dayal had boasted about the improved service and Perraud used to contradict him. 

Then the cherry on the cake: while the meteorological station put out a simple class 2 warning communiqué, our dear minister, in yet another press conference yesterday, said that there may be a tsunami in Rodrigues!  A tsunami! And there we were, stupid us thinking that this is caused by an underwater quake or volcanic eruption! Rodriguans, time to start panicking! Then the saviour of our people announces his intention – yet another – of sending helicopters to Rodrigues to land in ‘class 4’! Look out for the hero, dear compatriots!

There is a difference between work and marketing stunts, slogans and propaganda. The razzmatazz and preposterous declarations of intentions are no substitute for good work. What we have seen so far are slogans, press conferences and a frenetic race for publicity. We have not yet seen any real work. We have heard criticism of the opacity of the previous government but we have not yet seen the transparency of this one. The Betamax contract is being criticised and used as another marketing stunt but it has not been made public, has it? 

We have not yet seen change, at least not for the better. As it happens, there are worrying signs which need to raise alarm bells. The police cases being re-opened selectively do not augur well for the justice system in this country. The systematic leaks to the press which allow every citizen to get a step-by-step rundown of everything witnesses say in all confidentiality and the moral harassment that follows are unfair to those presumed innocent. 

The population right now seems to be asking for blood and it is being served it. When the people have sobered up a little, there may be a boomerang effect. It is time the new government redefined its priorities and settled down to do some real work.