{"id":21058,"date":"2019-07-01T10:17:44","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T06:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=21058"},"modified":"2019-07-01T10:17:44","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T06:17:44","slug":"summing-up-of-budget-2019-20-justifying-irresponsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/summing-up-of-budget-2019-20-justifying-irresponsibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Summing up of Budget 2019-20: Justifying irresponsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rattan Khushiram<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

After the two exceptional contributions on Budget 2019-20 \u2013 the first being the well-researched intervention by the Leader of the MMM in the National Assembly, and the second the thorough analytical paper of Sushil Khushiram published in some leading newspapers –, the Minister of Finance had to respond with the authority of a man that the high position of Minister of Finance (MOF) demands and the sanctimony of someone who believes in a clear vision of the economy, its programmes and policies and the drive to nudge the debate forward with verve and clarity.<\/span><\/p>\n

But unfortunately, it was not to be so. Instead of a composed \u201cChancellor of the Exchequer\u201d refuting each of the arguments of his critics pointedly with tact and savoir-faire, we had the politician pillorying with inflammatory rhetoric his opponents. Why such aggressivity? Is it because of the latest intelligence reports that the budget, despite the plethora of sops and giveaways, would not have been well received by the population — a crisis of expectations that seems to have unnerved our MOF?<\/span><\/p>\n

The MOF had his rosy story about the economy and its challenges all ready for the summing up, well bent on not letting the\u00a0facts\u00a0and figures get in the way of a good story. It played fast and loose with statistics and lapsed in historical amnesia wherever it suited his narrative. During the previous government\u2019s tenure, the narrative went, reckless spending and policy paralysis plunged the country into terrible financial trouble putting jobs and livelihoods at risk. When the new government took charge in 2014, it got a grip on the economy which was in tatters. The MOF carefully reeled out selected numbers to show how the government would have outperformed the previous government in the last few years with respect to inflation, Gini coefficient, doing business indicators and restoring confidence in the economy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe MOF has often made reference to the fact that the country is booming with construction activities and there are ongoing projects all over the island and that the country has become a \u201cvaste chantier\u201d. That is the main thing that differentiates this regime from the previous one. This has become a slogan of the government which, however, is not confirmed by the figures. The previous regime, even without consequential grants, fared better in terms of average investment rate, private and public sector investment and central government\u2019s capital spending over a five-year period\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Thereafter the MOF very rapidly moved to other topics where he was more at ease and had an axe to grind dredging up old recriminations while shrewdly glossing over<\/span><\/p>\n