It was hoped he would be the messiah of the Mauritian economy. It turns out that, for the moment, those hopes are unfounded. Last week, Rama Sithanen revealed his plans for an ailing economy. If he deserves credit for his honesty about the difficulties that await us all, his speech was marked by a lack of audacity and pugnacity. The Finance minister is vested with awesome, and, one sometimes feels, overwhelming responsibilities. If Mauritius were a company, he would be its chief financial officer. Unfortunately, the course he has charted for the country bears more resemblance to IBM in the 1980s - bloated and stultified - than to where we need to be heading, namely 1990s Apple, which took the world by storm with its innovative spirit and vision.

We all know how bleak the outlook is. It would be hard not to, given the previous government?s unequivocal insistence on the matter. Some could even argue that its no-frills realism is what cost it the elections. The population thus had the right to believe that the advent of the Social alliance would herald a break from the doomsday scenarios that marked the MSM-MMM mandate. Yet many measures announced by Sithanen are simply reheated versions of what his predecessor, Pravin Jugnauth, had prescribed in his last two budget speeches. He was expected to think outside the box, but the box, it seems, is where we?re forever condemned to roam.

The Finance minister has come up with one novelty: a ?silent agreement? allowing companies to invest here if, after a given time period, they have not obtained formal permission to do so. Yet, danger lurks in this one too. All it will take is for one company to have its fingers burnt by an overbearing and fumbling bureaucracy for warning signals to be sent out across what is an increasingly small global business neighbourhood. Civil servants are renowned for their propensity to interfere in anything and everything. Simply creating the idea of a 'silent agreement' will not alter that habit. Nor will any task force.

Lastly, tourism should not be treated as the be-all and end-all of economic development. As the author of ?The City ? a global history?, Joel Kotkin, pointed out on the BBC recently, cities that base their economies uniquely on tourism "do not do well". Of course, the tourism industry?s robustness can temporarily buoy an economy marred by the decline of the sugar and textile industries, but we must be weary of over-dependency. Especially if the behemoth of unplanned development continues to rush forth, thus turning our beaches into tired backdrops of parking lots and shopping malls.

All is not lost though, as proved by IBM?s recent renewal with success. To accomplish this, it had to completely reinvent itself ? from hardware manufacturer to service provider. Mauritius has the human resources to emulate IBM?s return to grace. Yet they will have to be optimised, at the very least. For one, the onus ? be it in the educational system or the civil service ? needs to be placed on result-oriented initiatives instead of the zombie-like subservience that currently prevails. At any rate, it will take a lot more than Sithanen?s tepid measures to turn things around.