{"id":25747,"date":"2020-03-28T19:40:14","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T15:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=25747"},"modified":"2020-03-28T19:40:14","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T15:40:14","slug":"apropos-government-expenditure-confinement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/apropos-government-expenditure-confinement\/","title":{"rendered":"Apropos Government Expenditure & Confinement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mailbox<\/span><\/u><\/h4>\n

According to the constitution, Mauritius has 34 ministers made up of the PM, 23 cabinet ministers and 10 junior ministers also known as private parliamentary secretaries. Consequently almost half of parliament is composed of ministers. Another proud world record for little Mauritius!<\/span><\/p>\n

Now each one of these 34 honourables is entitled to an official car; and obviously they all opt for one with a big engine capacity that guzzles huge amounts of fuel. All paid for by the taxpayer.\u00a0But what many people may not know is that these hard working honourables are apparently entitled to a personalised number plate as well, at a cost of Rs 40,000 each. That adds up to a total of Rs1,360,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now one MAY (the capital letters are deliberate) concede that, besides their disproportionate salaries and perks, the taxpayer needs to provide each one of them with a big car to deliver the dubious goods in several instances, but one wonders in what way these personalised number plates enhance their output.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wasn’t it only last week that we heard the PM say that Government must reduce its expenditure by 10%? Revising MPs salaries and inordinate perks downwards might be a good start.<\/span><\/p>\n

By R.B.
\n<\/em><\/strong>Quatre Bornes<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Confinement… <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Heaven for some, <\/span>
\nHell for others<\/span>
\nStill, together <\/span>
\nWe are bound to kneel <\/span>
\nIn front of the wrath of Mother Earth <\/span>
\nAnd reflect on our despicable acts <\/span>
\nWe\u2019ve been constantly assassinating her progenies <\/span>
\nWith our scandalous actions<\/span>
\nLeading to their premature extinction <\/span>
\nToday, human beings feel \u2018imprisoned\u2019 in their own concrete \u2018nests\u2019 <\/span>
\nFearing that once they\u2019ll step outside from their bubbles <\/span>
\nAnd get back into their routines<\/span>
\nThey\u2019ll end up as the perfect host <\/span>
\nOf the deadly Coronavirus <\/span>
\nLife is thus resumed to a set of possibilities <\/span>
\nWe can think of <\/span>
\nTo control this anguish <\/span>
\nFrom spreading its vicious poisonous tentacles <\/span>
\nInto our existence <\/span>
\nWe should learn to appreciate each breath we take
\n<\/span>Realizing the importance of another day loaned to us
\n<\/span>To make a positive difference in the world
\n<\/span>We should learn to love selflessly
\n<\/span>Those we\u2019ve been taking for granted so far
\n<\/span>We should learn to reflect on our own existence
\n<\/span>And together learn to rectify our shameful acts
\n<\/span>To make it a better world
\n<\/span>For You and For Me.<\/span><\/p>\n

By Kushida D. Fulena<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

* Published in print edition on <\/em>25 March 2020<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34],"tags":[23028,21808,23029,23027,18332,21685,23030,10693],"class_list":["post-25747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-readers-speak","tag-confinement","tag-coronavirus","tag-disproportionate-salaries-and-perks","tag-government-expenditure","tag-kushida-d-fulena","tag-mother-earth","tag-mps-salaries","tag-readers-speak"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Mail.jpg?fit=1200%2C960&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-6Hh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}