I love my country a lot; I believe that I owe a lot to it. I do not think my country owes me anything. This is why I should work in the best interests of this country in which I was born. We, Mauritians, need to change our attitudes and mentalities if we wish to progress and become a strong and prosperous nation. The world owes us nothing and we must find our own ways to survive. We should not be known as a nation of beggars but as one that can strive through innovation and creativity to emerge from poverty.

It seems we are developing a mentality that expects to be assisted all the time and the country to do everything for us. I am afraid that if we continue with this trend, which is getting so deep-rooted nowadays, we shall end up in disaster and nobody should be blamed for that, except ourselves. In my profession, I meet a number of fellow citizens daily and I am very disappointed in the way we behave and think. I do agree that life is difficult nowadays as it is elsewhere throughout the world but still we do have hope that we can find ways to survive. We are not starving in this country though we are a small island with very few natural resources. Our only valuable asset is our human resources, both intellectual and manual.

I find it disgusting that we can talk of unemployment when we employ some 20,000 expatriates (Indian and Chinese) in the textile, construction and other sectors. We are slowly becoming a lazy nation where we want to have everything but with little or no effort at all. Most of us want to work only in the public service. The expatriates work hard to earn their living here but we Mauritians do not want to take jobs with long or odd hours. We are not prepared to make any sacrifices to earn a decent living. We enjoyed an economic miracle in the late 80s and the early 90s because our fellow citizens were working hard in the ?zone souffrance.?

Nowadays I hear we have a lot of hope in the tourism sector - we do not have much choice either- but I have some suspicions that, if the human resources for this sector are not well trained and well prepared, we would need expatriates (waiters, maids etc.) to service the guests in hotels as well. Our young people have an odd perception when they join the hotel industry as they think they will be treated like the guests and often forget that they are employees of the hotel. They think they will get the same food, lodging and entertainment facilities as the guests. Thus when they find that this is not the case they are disappointed and leave the job. The authorities and the hotel school should address this issue before it is too late.

Can you imagine that we have Chinese and Indians working on construction sites and textile industries around the country as Mauritians find the jobs too difficult and this is making us lose foreign exchange. Mauritian firms prefer to pay higher wages and offer lodging facilities to expatriates than to employ Mauritians because of a productivity problem. As a joke, it is said that a Mauritian takes more than15 minutes to go to the toilet while the expatriate goes to the toilet running and comes back running. This is amazing but true.

There was a time when we had a responsible and hardworking mentality but this has dwindled away into laziness and irresponsibility. For how long will this situation continue? Generally, the mentality that has developed over time is that everything is easy, no hard work is needed, no sacrifice is needed, the government will do everything for us. We are just becoming a nation that needs assistance all the time. There is a saying ? God helps those who help themselves? but we are not helping ourselves, instead we take all the 21 days of sick leave provided to us by law. Even if we are not ill, we stay at home and when the company we work for is in financial difficulty due to poor productivity this is not our problem but that of the management and the owners.

We must all have heard about Gemba Kaizen and Muda (waste of resources ) and we can see this daily at work, at home and in public areas. If only we could be more responsible, our quality of life would improve drastically but this is not the case. Mauritians show irresponsible behaviour, throwing rubbish everywhere (in a country supposed to be a tourist destination) and somebody else (perhaps expatriates in a near future) will collect the plastic bottles and garbage. This negative attitude harms us a lot in terms of image and the cost of refuge collection and its disposal.

If we wish to become Singapore or Hongkong, we should change our irrational mentality for, as time goes on, it will be even more difficult to change this disastrous attitude that will drive us into more difficult times ahead. We should be more responsible and accountable for our wrong actions and pay the price for our irresponsibility and wrong behaviour. This does not seem to be the case as Mauritians feel they are untouchable, unpunished and will always find an easy way out even if they are caught as so many lawyers are available to help them out.

Mauritians seem to be quite happy to be highly indebted and enjoy an illusionary high standard of living for ?show-off? purposes and when they get into difficulties they are not at fault as they have such a ?poor salary? and the government is not helping them at all. We should understand that the government and the people are the same. The government does not produce money as most of us think. If the government is in financial difficulty the nation will have to pay one day or the other through higher taxes or a poorer standard of living.

My message is very clear and simple: we Mauritians must learn to be more responsible and work harder to enjoy a better standard of living and be proud to be Mauritians on a paradise island. We have the potential, we need to exploit it, nobody owes us anything, we have to help ourselves, we cannot depend on the government, as the government itself depends on US.

Long live a responsible and prosperous Mauritius!

DARMEN Chartered Management Accountant