Trade unions will boycott the budget presentation this afternoon. They will be at the municipality of Port-Louis when the Finance minister, Rama Sithanen, reads his second budget speech in Parliament. Their main grievance: the ?budget of continuity?, which both the prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, and minister Sithanen have been announcing, looks ?frightening? to them since the previous one did not meet their expectations at all.

The Trade Union Common Platform held a brainstorming session on the fall back of the last budget yesterday morning. At the press conference held just after this session, they said that the situation was clear: employers and bosses keep getting rich while the more vulnerable members of society are unable to make ends meet. The gap keeps widening and they would not hesitate to take action if today?s budget is in the same vein.

According to Atma Shanto, the logic behind Rama Sithanen?s budget is no less than the recommendations of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.

?What we can see now is that the people are in a more precarious situation today than they were a year ago,? summarises the president of the Mauritius Labour Congress, Cassam Kureeman. ?The bombardment of Rama Sithanen through his own advisers and the communication cell of the Prime minister?s office has already started. Today?s budget will go in the same direction and follow the same logic as the previous ones,? adds Atma Shanto, the president of the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC).

According to the latter, the logic behind Rama Sithanen?s budget is no less than the recommendations of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. But he is adamant that the measures announced in the last budget had absolutely nothing to do with the programme announced during the electoral campaign. ?He promised a better society and more social justice during this government?s mandate but nothing has occurred up to now. He was elected on a programme by the population and not on prescriptions made by the IMF.?

For Reaz Chuttoo, president of the Federation of Progressive Unions, ?Rama Sithanen is indeed a great minister of Finance from a business point of view. But a budget should not only be economic; it should also have a social side in it.?

A rapid review of the situation in several sectors led him to state that the state has completely withdrawn from its responsibilities with his last budget. ?No single rupee has been earmarked for the building of new schools while facilities were added for new investors in the tertiary education, no provision was made for high-tech medical equipment while taxes were removed on machines in the private sector and loan facilities were injected,? he stated as examples. He also insisted on the potential health hazards of the incinerator at La Chaumière while they had kept on ?making a lot of noise on Mare-Chicose while they were in the opposition?. Atma Shanto also pointed out that the minister of Finance should not say that the sole solution is privatisation ?while some countries like the Venezuela have adopted exactly the opposite line by nationalising some companies?.

The trade unions do not have much hope that today?s budget will better correspond to their expectations than the previous one. This is why they have chosen to boycott it in Parliament. But there is no doubt that they will not miss his speech on television. Among others, they are asking for an integral wage compensation (Rs 800) and the exemption of SC and HSC fees for all students.

However, they have already announced that they would need about one week to fully analyse the measures before deciding of possible steps to be taken. ?But if it is a budget of continuity, the government can rely on us for our action to be in continuity as well,? declared Reaz Chuttoo at the end of the meeting. A member of the MLC made it clear, ?Trade unions are not always opposing everything but we are forced to take such a stand in such a situation.?