Budget 2009 – Paying for Jj’s mess
While ordinary people pay the price for the mistakes and failures, we need to learn from the past and end the lies.
Finance Minister Danny Faure has not revealed anything in the 2009 Budget Address, but he has confirmed everything. It is now payback time for the mess which has been created
by Albert René and James Michel over the past three decades. It is the Seychellois people who will be paying.
The budget presented to the National Assembly enshrines the tax increases and charges which have been brought as part of the IMF assisted programme. Most of these have hit already – the new taxes on fuel, drinks and tobacco as well as the increases on all imported goods resulting from the devaluation of the rupee. The last charge to be brought on line has been the increase in bus fares, which, similar to other increases, has been of 133%. Regular SPTC passengers will now have to face a R14 daily return fare, adding a big burden to the already stretched finances of the ordinary worker.
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
“We have to look at where we come from in order to know where we want to go,” Mr. Faure has said. This is a lesson he must take seriously. The lesson for the future is to see where it went wrong. Yet, this Mr. Faure has not accepted yet. Once again, he has come out with false explanations for the problems we are facing, in attributing our economic crunch to the global financial crisis and the price of fuel. This is only one more attempt to fool the people. Mr. Faure must have the courage to dig farther into the past than that.
This he admitted when he spoke of the need for a new model for our economy. If we need a new model, it is because the old one has failed. Yet, despite all the talk of things that are changing, Mr. Faure and his party have not yet fashioned a new model. Too much remains the same. The old model, based on misguided and decisions, produced useless projects, waste, mismanagement and corruption. It is these things that led us to become the most indebted country in the world per capita, and this is the real reason for our problems.
Mr. Faure has not gone far enough in recognizing this. Speaking of the controversial
US$2.5 billion in overseas bank deposits reported to be owned by Seychellois, he said it included money owned by companies registered in Seychelles. But this does not answer the question. What Seychellois are asking about, is what may be owned by former
elected or appointed officials. We know that such officials have money overseas.
How much and how was it earned, is what we must pursue.
Not enough has been said or done to ensure that the practices of the past do not continue. Mr. Faure’s Government must make more vigourous efforts to change their practices and ensure that waste, mismanagement and corruption do not persist.
Recent efforts to address the mistakes of the past have been only a cover-up. The recently passed laws on Ethics for Public Officers and for Protection of Human Rights, critical for better governance, have shown that Mr. Faure’s Government is only pretending to be addressing these issues. Another critical piece of legislation has now been announced. This is a law on public debt, which will create an oversight committee to supervise how loans are taken and spent. If this committee is, like others before it, only made up of members chosen by the President for their loyalty, it will only be another mask. Unless the responsibility for oversight is entrusted to the Opposition, it will be useless.
END THE LIES
The 2009 Budget is an admission of mistakes of the past 30 years. It is also an admission that the Seychellois people have been lied to for years.
Albert Rene and James Michel have constantly told us that the economic system they were building was solid. When difficulties showed up, the Seychellois people were told they only had to bear the sacrifice for a short time. On the subject of foreign exchange they have been categorical. Numerous times we have been told that we were on the way to as much foreign currency as we needed, or wanted. When opposition leader Wavel Ramkalawan spoke of the need for reforms to achieve a convertible currency, he was ridiculed. Yet nothing has been stronger in Mr. Faure’s budget speech than the need for a convertible rupee.
When he assumed power, James Michel stated that the country had taken all the foreign loans it needed and would not take any more. Yet, it is under him that the country has gone on to triple its overseas borrowings, resulting in the final calamitous loans through Lehman Brothers. In contrast to all this, we are now told we have been bankrupted by our loans obligations and will have to endure heavy sacrifices. But Mr. Faure is again telling that this is only for two years, ending just before the next election.
Who in his right mind will now believe this is the truth?
Source: REGAR