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12 novembre 2012, 00:00

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lexpress.mu | Toute l'actualité de l'île Maurice en temps réel.

The trailer for the budget heralded something imaginative and visionary to get the country on a path of sustained and sustainable development. The economic crises afflicting the rest of the world, in particular Europe which is our biggest trading partner and the main reservoir for the tourism and hospitality industry, ought to have impelled those who for months have been working on the Budget to show that they appreciate the magnitude of the task that lies ahead and to propose measures that can make a difference.

We are left to wonder about what that army of senior public officers in the Ministry of Finance had been pondering. We must admit that there is disappointment overall with the budget. The political hype through the medium of the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation – or should it now be called the Ramgoolam Broadcasting Corporation (RBC) - turned out to be just that and we were served an empty budget apart from some economic populist pacifiers.

Surely it cannot be that the senior people working at the Ministry of Finance have lost any intellectual baggage which they were supposed to be endowed with. So what is the problem? Has Mauritius become an intellectual desert? Or is the climate of fear that the Government has instilled in the minds of the people taking its toll at all bureaucratic levels where no one has the courage to say to the powers that hold sway over them and us that they are wrong. Or is it the reign of the cronies, lobbyists and friends of the Ministers who want to use the machinery of the State to benefit from specially designed measures. There may also be bureaucratic jealousies or spheres of influence that go against what is required in the public interest.

Some of the measures like the writing off of all debts up to Rs 20,000 at the Development Bank of Mauritius send very bad signals. What is the magic about Rs 20,000? It would be interesting to get the list of the names of people who are going to benefit from this generous measure. The taxpayer needs to know since he or she is the ultimate provider of such largesses to specially targeted groups. Transparency demands militate in favour of openness. There may be valid reasons for writing off of debts but such a blanket writing off calls for scrutiny.

At a time when the speed cameras are being installed everywhere to trap motorists, this Budget has waived duty on motorcycles of 200 cc. These are the motor bikes that create noise and engage in unlawful races on our roads. It is hard to understand what the intention is unless it is to enable a trader to sell off his stock of motor bikes.

But then why should we – as our people say – «casse la tete»? The Budget has provided for cinema tickets to be reduced. The best thing one can do right now is to go to a cinema hall to watch a real movie instead of the Budget cinema. By the way, who are the cinema owners who have recently come on the market?