Menu

Paul Lismore

[Paul Lismore] A terrible government very lucky to have a useless opposition against it !


Rédigé par Paul Lismore le Vendredi 1 Février 2019

"There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless."---Niccolo Machiavelli



Most people in Mauritius nowadays feel helpless and disconnected from political life, and from being able to effect real change in Paradise Island.

The level of public debate and participation has fragmented into a cacophony of voices arguing on which political leader is best suited to deal with the moral issues of urgency and the desperate problems that affect every section of our society, apart from a political class seemingly unable to satiate its unremitting greed for dipping into the public purse.

Political rhetoric is now couched directly or subliminally in terms of religion, caste, and race and the unquenchable thirst for power, as opposed to the real issues driven by injustice, corruption, nepotism, racism, and inequality.

The French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, described anomie as the lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group.

The increasing level of crime, of anti social behaviour, of the twin cancer of corruption and nepotism having failed to reach, at the very least, the state of remission that we were promised at the last election (and every election before that...), of the gross and immoral waste of taxpayers money by a different group of individuals in power, etc.

They have all contributed to create an atmosphere of fatalistic apathy, often expressed by the 'zot tou parey' phrase of exasperation by the public towards our politicians.

The rot set in with one of the first decisions made by SAJ during his current Prime Ministership: the appointment of Maunthrooa, a chap facing very serious charges of corruption, as his special adviser, and the appointment of someone like Bissoon Mungroo on the board of a national airline already in terminal decline through decades of mismanagement and a level of corruption rarely seen even in other non performing parastatal organisations.

Bissoon Mungroo was sentenced to 9 months imprisonment for fraud in the late eighties and despite losing his appeal at the Privy Council, managed somehow TO NOT SPEND EVEN ONE DAY IN PRISON!

How can this be possible, I hear you scream? Well, we live in an Etat de Droit, don't we?

The fact that the Privy Council clearly concluded that Mungroo " should serve a sentence which he richly deserved" is neither here nor there in our glorious etat de droit.

The mysterious Commission de Pourvoi de Grace has powers that neither logic nor ethics would seem able to interfere with...and Mungroo went on to become a very rich man indeed.

But it gets worse, much worse: The bail on Le Val given to Mungroo in 1994 was rescinded in 2009 due to his failure on many grounds; Mungroo appealed to the Supreme Court, lost the appeal, and applied to the Privy Council through the services of his lawyer, one Roshi Bhadain. This was refused in 2015.

Anyone with half a brain would assume that the case is now over. Think again, although you won't be shocked as these things are considered par for the course in our wonderful democracy.

A few months after his application for leave to appeal was rejected by the Privy Council, the government gave Mungroo Rs 10 millions as 'compensation' for being lawfully evicted from Le Val!!!

Haha! Vreman larzan taxpayer pou mari mama ban politiciens, non?

But it does get worse in terms of nominations: Scrunchy Gayan has now managed to get his wife, son, in laws, and mistress in lovely jobs with wonderful salaries and privileges paid by the taxpayer; Biswajit Dayal's son of course was the best person to get whatever cushy job he has now obtained; so too are Wilkinson's retinue of relatives and good friends.

After all, who better to be appointed as Chairman of the Financial Services Commission than the only man to have acknowledged his criminal role in the MBC/NPF scandal and reimbursed Rs 400,000, Dev Manraj?

He is apparently so good that he is also the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, as well as nominations to various other boards....

Of course, wherever Zaza goes, Robert Desveaux follows, in a gruesome version of the Terrible Twins, as well as the other hangers on that inexplicably makes him apparently our most popular politician.

Sherry Singh, who is apparently very close to Pravin Jugnauth, was of course made boss of MT, and rapidly forgot about the pledge to investigate the corrupt deals with Vanuatu Islands made by his predecessor Sarat Lallah, who was last heard singing lalalalalala in Vanuatu about his incredibly good fortune.

Ivan Collendavelloo of course found no one better than a gym instructor to sit on the Board of WWMA (all that talk about shifting shit must require a lot of muscles and a six pack, allegedly...), and has now surpassed himself by appointing Yousouf Ismael, an economist who failed to see the economic problems of BAI/Bramer when he was Chief Economist there, as CEO of the CWA....

The list is quite endless of nominations that defy belief and that give the impression of spoilt kids let loose in the sweet shop and grabbing whatever they can.

What used to be criticised, and rightly so, when Ramgoolam was playing footsie with nominations now seems to be the guiding principle of the Lepep government. We all used to complain amongst ourselves of the huge waste of taxpayers money on so called experts from abroad. What is the Lepep government doing? Exactly the same thing!

Look at Gorgeous Brylcreem Boy Nando Bodha and his declared intent to rectify the hugely corrupt free public transport for old age pensioners and schoolkids. That system is so lamentably inept and horribly lacking in accountability that for years bus owners have been given vast amounts of taxpayers money even when their buses are parked up and not in use.

What could be so difficult about changing this and saving taxpayers money?

Why can't old age pensioners be given chipped cards so that every time they use a bus, that journey is registered and the bus owner gets paid only for the journeys actually undertaken?

What would be so difficult about employing someone in every school/college to keep a daily attendance record and to then give the money for free transport directly to the parents every month? Won't that kill two birds with one stone, monitoring attendance due to our substantial truancy problem and ensuring that only journeys undertaken are paid for?

Why do we need a fucking expert to recommend after months/years of displaying their 'expertise' (if we are lucky) what is so patently obvious?

And the Brylcreem boy has still done fuck all to rectify this quite scandalous situation, after four long years.

 Every change of government means the replacement of one set of hugely expensive idiots with another group of individuals as 'diplomats' who probably believe that 'diplomat' is something to do with a new variety of carpets.

We have all seen the plight of refugees and how over a million of them landed in Germany recently, causing huge accommodation, social, and employment problems. Guess what our ambassador to Germany recently told our unemployed? " Come to Germany, loads of jobs here!" No amount of money could possibly buy stupidity on that scale...

The list of faux pas by this government is becoming alarmingly long after only one year. A half decent opposition would have capitalised on that and chip away at the residual popularity of the Lepep government.

A PTr well led and well organised would have recouped many of the supporters who abandoned it at the last elections and then drifted over to the MSM.

What do we have instead? A PTr led by a leader who not only lost his seat but whose image is indelibly associated with huge safes containing vast amounts of money; a leader who will forever be associated with the Scarlet Woman, Nandinee Soornack, and who will be handicapped by various court cases which will not be dealt with before the next elections; a leader who will forever be associated with a hedonistic lifestyle and the demeanour of a playboy on heat who likes fast cars and fast women.

The real tragedy for that party is the absence of anyone with any balls to challenge a status quo that is in grave danger of finishing off the party completely if nothing is done to replace a leader who still believes that surrounded by idiotic advisers/yes men and old fossils whilst cocooned in his house and doing fuck all is a sign of great leadership...

On the other side, we have Paul Berenger, by far the most over rated of our politicians, who has a disque rayee playing the same tunes permanently in his brain, and that too in a rather discordant manner; this man simply does not learn anything from experience.

He describes himself as a 'historian', another example of his indomitable arrogance, and yet he fails to learn the lessons of history, that continually harping on about 'elections anticipees', 'MMM plus fort que jamais', 'nou la main prop','nou ena ene lekip solide', bla bla bla makes him look like the ridiculous figure he has sadly become.

But who will replace him? Have a look at the army of zombies surrounding him during his weekly sermons which he calls 'press conference' and you will understand why that party is in terminal decline too.

SAJ had a wonderful opportunity to vreman sanz pays when we trusted him with our votes on 10th December 2014. The evidence so far shows that the changes have been cosmetic, and that there is a terrible need for proper leadership from him and for proper cohesion within the government.

PJ seems too scared of his own shadow and has yet to show the balls required to be a decent PM who can rectify the huge damage caused to his party by the psychopaths who destroyed BAI/Bramer.

The Lepep government is very, very lucky to have such a disorganised opposition facing it. But it must not bank on that as a permanent feature of the political landscape. 

The sooner they stop this mad rush to repeat the mistakes of the Ramgoolam governments, the better for them. They don't seem to realise that the rules of the game have changed: by dragging Ramgoolam to Casernes, they have driven a huge breach in the previous policy of all parties of 'pa tousse nou kan nou perdi elections'.

2019 is not that far away, and if the opposition can get its act together, there will be a different queue of thieving politicians and their proteges waiting to be interviewed and charged.

As Macchiavelli said all those years ago, it takes a useless kind of intelligence to fail to understand the issues that are so blatantly obvious and which lepep admirab understands only too well.

Vendredi 1 Février 2019

Nouveau commentaire :

Règles communautaires

Nous rappelons qu’aucun commentaire profane, raciste, sexiste, homophobe, obscène, relatif à l’intolérance religieuse, à la haine ou comportant des propos incendiaires ne sera toléré. Le droit à la liberté d’expression est important, mais il doit être exercé dans les limites légales de la discussion. Tout commentaire qui ne respecte pas ces critères sera supprimé sans préavis.


LES PLUS LUS EN 24H