Many disenchanted voters will look back on 2015 as a year littered with broken promises and insouciant flip-flopping. It started with government members firing off soundbites and promises and ended with more promises to fulfil the broken promises. In between, we had some fantastic surreal promises made where each politician tried to up the ante and outsmart his colleagues.

The biggest promise was that of an economic miracle. A second one if you please. The minister of finance promised  5.4% growth by the end of 2015. He doggedly stuck to it in spite of the predictions of all economists. After all, what do these self-proclaimed economists know about growth? We are not talking about figures here. We are talking about magicians and miracles.

With the economic miracle comes job creation. And here too, there was no shortage of promises. Full employment of course, according to the minister of finance. Two jobs per person, according to our minister of land and housing. Don’t ask what he has to do with employment. He has a finger in every pie, particularly those which have not been baked yet. As the unemployment queue started getting even longer, the finger-in-every-pie minister started flexing his muscles and threatening companies with some anti-business policies. When a company started considering taking its jobs to other countries, he first announced that 12,000 jobs would be lost and the very next day, he bragged that he had created the 12,000 which were about to be lost. For creativity, we have hardly ever seen anything as spectacular!

But the most glaringly broken promise perhaps is that of transparency and meritocracy. “We will advertise every position,” the government said, “including those of chairmen of parastatals. This is the end of political nepotism and cronyism. We want competent people in every position in this country.” As people started dreaming of a better Mauritius where meritocracy replaces political connections, the onslaught began: not only were the positions previously reserved for political nominees not advertised but even those which normally go through the recruitment process were allocated to family members and cronies. In many families, both husband and wife were nominated at various scrumptious, cushy jobs. Those who are lucky had their progeny also parachuted into very juicy positions. And don’t think anyone was embarrassed about this. In fact, some ministers like Ivan Collendavello even openly said that “of course we will favour those who are close to us and share our vision”. What did you expect? That is what meritocracy is all about!

While this was happening, some laws were being written into our constitution. No, stupid, not the ones about regulating political party financing or the freedom of information legislation or – heaven forbid – a public declaration of assets. No, perish the thought! Those were only to decorate the electoral manifesto. Laws have to be enacted in terms of priority: so an insurance bill was enacted to make sure the British American Investment company – handled with brutality and amateurism, according to many observers – has no longer a leg to stand on. Then out of the blue came an inane flag bill to punish anyone who shows disrespect for our national flag – a real priority, of course. And then followed the very dangerous GGIR bill, which gives unchecked powers to one minister and soon to those he will appoint in the very ‘meritorious’ way we have got used to.

And our government ministers kept looking us straight in the eye and talking about transparency and cleaning up the country. You must appreciate that just as all the competent people happen to be related to those in power, all the crooks are in the opposition. It is a very simple equation.

As the promised growth not only did not happen, but the economy in fact shrank to a 3.4% low, as the unemployment statistic started revealing the truth, as the promised laws did not make their way into our legislation, we received the promise that in fact all the promises will be fulfilled in the future. So trap la bouzi rouz, compatriots, and look to the future!

In the meantime, Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

weekly@lasentinelle.mu

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