[Paul Lismore] Ask, and Père Noël Pravin shall give you...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. We all know the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells his followers "Ask, and it will be given to you".

A rational interpretation of this is that what we ask for must be good in God’s estimation. God will give advantageous gifts to His children; He will not give us bad or injurious things, no matter how much we clamour for them. He most certainly would not lumber us with a huge amount of debts and then continue to give us more, however much we might want those freebies. Because he knows these are not freebies and that we, our children, and our grandchildren will have to eventually pay for all those toxic 'gifts'.

When the economy, on his own admission, is in a terrible state, Santa Claus Pravind Jugnauth will do what most rich and developed nations are refusing to do: Give Civil Servants and all those working in the public sector/parastatals a hefty pay increase together with a very juicy backpay.

Here, in Paradise Island, we call it Pay Research Bureau or PRB, as in Paul Raymond Berenger: Both PRBs are well past their sell-by date and only fanatical idolisers will believe otherwise. Some 100,000 employees in the public sector, known colloquially as "travay dan gouvernman", will have a wonderful Xmas and New Year whilst hundreds of thousands of workers in the private sector will be lucky to have a few crumbs from the master's table...

But this is what our "Patriotic" politicians believe to be dans l'interet superieur du pays: borrow more and more in order to satisfy the seemingly insatiable desire of Mauritians for what they think are "freebies". The more a government gives to a Lepep Kouyon, the higher the chances of that same Lepep Kouyon returning them to power at the next elections. That seems to be the really peculiar trade off: Never mind the state of the economy, but the more debts you pile on the country in order to satisfy the loathsome principle of "Gouvernman bizin donner", the higher the chances of the freebie seekers voting you into power again.

We have a "free" education system which criminally discriminates against the poor who can't afford private tuition. There isn't one politician from ANY party, including the Gouverner autrement wallahs, who would tell teachers: " You want to rake in a fortune by giving private tuition? Fine. As long as you give one child from a poor family free private tuition for every 3 children whose parents can afford to pay."

We have "free" health care, but most people would rather go to a private hospital because the care and treatment is supposed to be better. We pump billions of rupees in the "free" healthcare system, but no politician has the balls to tell administrators and consultants: We expect a drastic improvement in a year's time in the way this hospital is being run, otherwise goodbye...It is not as if we are short of doctors, are we?

We have a wonderful old age pension system where you can draw your basic old age pension at 60 but you can continue to work on a full salary until you are 65!! Unless if your face looks like a Tekwa and you are called Dev Manraj, and therefore you can "work" until you are 150 years old, and draw your pension and huge salaries... No other country in the world allows this sort of stupid extravagance, but eh! This is Mauritius, where the only thing that matters is the vote.

I won't mention the monstrosity known as "Duty Free" vehicles, and will instead join my compatriots in moaning about traffic jams, smoke belching from rust buckets on wheels, etc....We are really world champions when it comes to moaning...

So, when Prime Ministers from ALL parties say " Mo pou fer sa, mo pou donne ou sa", Lepep Kouyon see that as proof of a kind and generous man willing to give us so many freebies out of the goodness of his heart. Very few of Lepep Kouyon will understand that he is in fact giving you sweet fuck all from his own very deep pockets, but that every 'freebie', every extravagance will come directly from your own pockets.

And as our pockets have been empty for a long time, he will borrow yet even more money in your name, and give you the things that this island simply cannot afford, which he will then say "Moi ki in donne zot sa!". Do the maths people! If we as a nation already owe well over Rs 400 billions, how do you think he is going to fund all those extravagant things, if not by borrowing more and more in YOUR name?

Fair play to Pravind Jugnauth: When he realised that this country could simply not afford many of the ludicrous freebies, like the old age pension to the Super rich and even the averagely rich people; when he saw the injustice and incongruity in only city dwellers paying the Council tax and rich people in villages and owning big houses paying nothing, guess what happened? When he tried to change that, the opposition crucified him, the MMM/MSM elections lost the 2005 elections, and he lost his own seat!
I am afraid he has learnt his 2005 lesson from Lepep Kouyon and therefore you can expect to see more freebies that the nation cannot afford before the next elections. 

Sometimes, we really do need to look at ourselves first or at the same time that we have a go at politicians. What choice does a politician have of success at the ballot box if he/she does not make stupid promises of the " mo pou donner" variety to a Lepep Kouyon constantly asking for more, and shouting " Gouvernman bizin donner!"?