The good doctor in Moliere?s ?Le malade imaginaire? had a simple cure for all ailments :

Clysterium donare

Postea seignare

Ensuitta purgare

If the patient does not recover, as is likely, he will die a quiet death.

This 17th century prescription has come back to haunt Mauritius in the 21st century. Our greatgrandparents transmitted to their children and future generations a culture of savings which saw them through the worst periods in the history of Mauritius. Even when they were earning peanuts they managed to save to buy a plot of land and to build a small house.

Why do you want to follow the same tradition in modern Mauritius? Your savings will be taxed. Why do you want to have your own house for residence? The residence also will be taxed. Dividends will not be taxed to encourage big capital to become bigger, which will encourage capitalists to build apartments and let them out. You should accept to be tenants and forget about having your own home. Our economic philosophers forget that social scientists have shown that countries which promote home ownership have reaped dividends in terms of social responsibility, home owners acting as a rampart against violence and other disruptive behaviour.

Why do you want to take a life insurance to support your family in case of untimely death,and yourself in your old age? You will not be given any relief for your foresight. Your family will get ?income support? in case of your untimely death and you yourself, in case you survive until the age of 65, will be allowed a free ride on buses, which will help you forget about your plight.

Whilst countries like India and China are broadening their middle class base to spur their economic and social development, the prescriptions in the 2006-2007 Budget will bleed the middle class until it dies a slow death. The ?philosophy? behind the Budget proposals is that development will come only through Foreign Direct Investment. In India and China, vibrant and intellectually alert middle classes are in the forefront of economic and social development.

There was a time when parents would use their lifetime savings to send their children overseas for higher studies with the hope that they will come back, move up the economic ladder and look after them in their old age. Today they are telling their children : Stay overseas . Don?t come back. There is no future for you here.

What can we say about the weaker sections of the population? They will have an ?income support? to buy their daily bread and their ?riz ration?, which tourists were lapping up in the past without showing any remorse. As we all know, the French Queen Marie-Antoinette had told the peasants who were clamouring for their daily bread to eat cake instead. But the price of cake also has gone up in order not to subsidize tourists. But history has a knack of repeating itself. It is perhaps only round the corner.

Surendra BISSOONDOYAL