This year, we have paid close to Rs300 billion for our imports and the year is not over yet. Three hundred billion. But this is not the worst part of the news or the most worrying. The more concerning news is that the value of our exports was only Rs110 billion. About a third of what we imported. Now you don’t need to be an economist to know the meaning of that. A primary school kid could work out the logical conclusion: we are living way above our means.

Some of our imports are food of course – Rs40 billion in the first nine months. We vaguely remember a programme about food sufficiency and similar promises. Have we come any closer to that so far? Perish the thought! But food is not the only culprit; nor medicines; nor fuel. We have also imported Rs25 billion worth of cars!!! More than half our food bill. Some of these cars are luxury items like limousines for our officials. We paid for them in hard currency because they deserve them. In another life, in 2014, for example, our trade deficit was rather different. We paid around Rs172 billion for our imports and we exported Rs95 billion. Forget about the value of the rupee which has sunk to unprecedentedly low levels meanwhile. What is relevant here is that even that kid again can see that we were exporting more than half of what we were importing. Today, we are importing about three times what we are exporting!

What this means is that our productivity as a nation has gone down tremendously in less than a decade and we are spending a lot more on consumption. How are we paying for the difference? Partly with the ‘services’ account but that still leaves a major hole in the current account balance. Magic only exists in Renganaden Padayachy’s book. The primary school kid knows that we are heading for trouble, as we have to borrow in forex more and more to beef up our reserves. Now, what is causing this situation? Could it be that a substantial chunk of our population is anaesthetised with different forms of drugs which are pouring into the country, some of which we had never heard of? Drugs have in fact become a new pillar of our economy and some of our kids are crowding our mental hospital – Ten admissions last week alone!

Could it also be that some of the most performing and qualified of our youth have left the country and are contributing to the productivity of other countries? There was a time when droves of Mauritians were coming back from countries like the UK, Australia etc. and were driving the level of services and the economy up. Look around you today: how many of the people you know have left skid marks? How many friends, relatives and colleagues have you lost in the last five or six years? Why? The result is that we are heavily indebted and we continue to pretend that all is well. As Shri Lanka did just before the plebs barged into the presidential palace and took a dip in the president’s swimming pool!

If you think we are looking into ways to redress the situation, just watch as the elections approach: gifts will be dished out left, right and centre, the basic retirement pension will likely be increased, another chunk of the population might get another Rs20,000 gift and a 14th month bonus might even be on the cards with the population footing the bill.

If this is a good recipe to win the election, it will do little to help those at the bottom of the social ladder. The reason is very simple: In 2014, the dollar hovered around Rs33. Today, to get one dollar, you need to fork out nearly Rs45! So robbing Peter (more) to pay Paul is not going to help. The erosion of the purchasing power is unlikely to stop for as long as the rupee continues to be allowed to slide. And the stunts pulled by the Bank of Mauritius like selling dollars ahead of the election to stabilise the rupee momentarily will only worsen a desperate situation. As in Sri Lanka, one upon a time.

A third edition of Touria Prayag’s book “Provisional Charges: The Untold Human Stories” and her second book: “#BLD: When Mauritius Lost its Bedside Manners” are now available at Librairie Le Cygne, Le Printemps, Hobby World and all the Bookcourt outlets.