First, let’s concede that there is no ideal budget. Every year, the budget exercise that we make such a big fuss about contains the good, the bad and the ugly.

Some of the measures announced in the budget of the prime minister and minister of finance, Pravind Jugnauth, are likely to make quite a few people happy. Social measures like the decrease in the price of petrol – which everyone was expecting – gas and income tax for the middle class give the budget a very strong taste of sugar and qualify it as a labous dou budget with a strong flavour of election. A few schemes announced for the unemployed are quite laudable and they must have struck a chord with the number of unemployed youth.

The problem with measures of this nature are twofold. First, the implementation. It is easy to make hefty promises if you have no intention of implementing them. They remain at the level of hollow rhetoric. If you look at the number of social houses announced this year, you will see that it is slightly higher than the one announced last year. Yet, we are still waiting for last year’s houses to be designed, built and delivered to those of our compatriots who are living on the streets or in shelters waiting for Godot.  

The second and more important problem with the announcements made is that they all sound like a Christmas wish list. There is no suggestion as to where the money is likely to come from. And there is indeed no talk about the economy. Most of our sectors – barring tourism and construction – are ailing and are in a worse situation than they were three years ago.

While Pravind Jugnauth congratulates himself and his own government for the ‘great progress’ achieved, the figures tell a different story. The situation in the ICT sector is tragic!  The real growth rate that was 7% in 2013 went down to a paltry 5.4% in 2016. Growth in the industrial sector has gone down substantially, falling from 4.1% in 2013 to only 1.9% in 2017. Our financial services sector is waiting for a big blow when the DTAA effectively comes to an end. Our balance deficit rose from Rs77.5 billion in 2013 to Rs99.5 billion in 2017. Our public debt went up from from 61.6% of GDP in December 2014 to 63.4% in December 2017. And even this high figure is doctored through the infamous Special Purpose Vehicles, the government’s way of feeding us false information and taking us for idiots. According to Economist Eric Ng, (Weekly 5 April) our real public debt is hovering around 70%! Add the situation in the cane industry to this explosive mixture and you have a full picture of the dire straits we are in. Yet we are shopping for sweets to fer labous dou!

I have not come across any economic measures to redress any of the ailing sectors mentioned above. Which brings us to the indecent – the idea of selling off our passport on the cheap. $1 million and you are a Mauritian citizen! Oh, your wife too and your children can acquire the nationality given a price. This is a very dangerous, desperate measure from a desperate government. It is unlikely to attract the kind of skills and competence we need in this country. It is more likely to attract people – like Alvaro Sobrinho – who have enriched themselves on the blood, sweat and tears of their compatriots. It also shows that the government has not been able to come up with any fiscal measures or projects to attract Foreign Direct Investment. So, let people pay and come and be one of us as long as they can afford us. Indecent indeed!

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