Between the devil and the deep blue sea
- By R.A.J. (guest)
- Published 19th October, 2007
The PM must decide whether to ditch his minister or his so called special adviser.
My God! Don’t we have so much fun when delusions of grandeur are grotesquely displayed in public in a vain attempt to hide the personal ambition bubbling away in the background? The hypocritical posturing and false concern for the poor has now reached farcical proportions with the invocation to a Superior Being for guidance in the apparently noble journey embarked upon by the special adviser. A weekly newspaper reported that Dinesh Ramjuttun recent outpourings are due to une force divine qui m’anime. The fact that none of us is witness to this supernatural phenomenon is neither here nor there, but most of us will inevitably ask ourselves this question: Why is God only now talking to this man when the budget he has taken great exception to is over two years old?
En cas de trahison, je pars! is the rather lurid headline from the same paper; Je peux partir a tout moment, menaces threateningly the good doctor, as if anyone is really bothered whether he stays or not. Such an intelligent man ought to perhaps realise that anyone ditching political partners with such monotonous regularity as he has done over the last twenty five years is not best qualified to pontificate about treachery and political subterfuge. He has become the acknowledged expert in realising which side his bread is buttered, and in his case he has always made sure that a healthy dollop of fruitful jam is added to the filling.
Of course, one must feel sorry that for the last two years Ramjuttun has been receiving only Rs 70,000 per month for his special brand of advice as he used to receive over Rs 200,000 per month plus fringe benefits when he was, yes you have guessed right, advising another nonentity in New York during the MMM/MSM government of 2000-2005. But I am sure the many arpents of prime State land at Pointe-Aux-Canonniers that he received from this government in 2005 will go a long way towards compensating him for the drop in his monthly salary…As he is shouting from the rooftops about injustice and transparency, perhaps he will tell us how much he is paying for that land. I bet you it will be a minute fraction of the amount that Sithanen is asking campement owners to pay for their leases; and you will never hear him complaining about the flagrant disparity and injustice in fiscal policy towards campements owners and those who like Ramjuttun pay peanuts for so called industrial leases for prime state lands a few yards away from those campements.
But what is he really complaining about? The National Residential Property Tax? We have already been assured that no one earning less than Rs 385,000 will have to pay anything, so what is his problem? Tax on interest on savings? Again, I am told that only those with deposits of more than Rs 2 millions will have to pay interest on those savings. Is Ramjuttun saying that anyone earning over Rs 385,000 or with savings over Rs 2 millions is poor and cannot contribute towards the funds required to pay for our free health service, free education, old age pensions, social security benefits, etc? What sort of society does this man really want? One where the rich and the comfortably off stuff their faces with more money that they can ever need to last a lifetime and cocoon themselves in enclaves of conspicuous wealth whilst turning a blind eye to the misery and poverty outside? What brand of selfishness allows those who can afford it to smugly say that they will not pay any taxes that will provide the basic services for those who can least afford it?
Ramjuttun argues that as Sithanen never contributed even one grain of sand for the construction of people’s houses, he should therefore not ask people to pay property taxes; this is shameless populism and piffling nonsense. This example of warped logic means that no government can ever raise any fiscal revenue as there will always be someone who will claim an exemption on highly dubious grounds. In any case, taxation has never been related to the amount of money that the government has poured down your throat; it is rather a means to take money from those who can afford it in order to provide for those who do not have the means for basic services. Throughout the ages, the purpose of taxation has been the ability to do 3 traditional things: raise cash for public services, redistribute from richer people to
poorer people,
and induce people to change their behaviour ( for example, an increase
in duty on tobacco will hopefully encourage people to give up one of
the most carcinogenic substances known to man).
Under the P.A.Y.E. system and the new 15% tax rate, Ramjuttun will be paying roughly Rs 10,000 rupees tax every month; perhaps he could tell us whether we are getting value for money from the Rs 55,000 net that we give him every month, without even taking into account the limousine that we have been compelled to also provide him. I am not aware of anyone ever asking us for permission to use our money to provide him with a fortune every month.
Nevertheless, his arguments about the removal of fiscal exemption for small planters are valid and the government ought to look again at this. It simply is not worth the hassle and for such a small sum.
But the real problem about Ramjuttun’s recent behaviour is not the daily rubbish pouring out of that garrulous mouth. It is the constitutional anomaly of a hand picked political appointee having the gall to criticise a government minister and the Prime Minister doing absolutely nothing to remind him of that glaring constitutional impropriety. Ramgoolam has often said that the budget belongs to his government and that he fully supports Sithanen in his role as architect of that budget. Therefore, one must logically conclude that Ramjuttun’s insults are directed at the government as a whole, and in particular to the person who leads that government. What is Ramgoolam’s response to this bare faced challenge to his authority? A three hour meeting with the loud mouth and an undertaking to arrange a meeting with the finance minister so that presumably they could kiss and make up following the upheaval caused entirely by someone paid handsomely to advise in private and to keep his mouth shut in public. I am surprised he did not offer him a GCSK medal too to reward such disloyalty!
Ramjuttun’s bravura display of arrogance, ignorance, and ceaseless solipsism has been mildly entertaining during the last fortnight; his eschatological fantasies about the destiny of this government if it fails to heed his self serving advice and his moralizing ideologies that have so far provided him with great personal benefits are beginning to get very tedious. Their presumptuousness and patronising dispositions are now close to driving sane people into screaming themselves into conniptions when they ask themselves this simple question: just what does it take for a Prime Minister to punish disloyalty, discourtesy, and gross insubordination, and to show real solidarity with his finance minister instead of the synthetic show of support that we are treated to every now and then?
Ramgoolam must surely know that his destiny as Prime Minister is inextricably linked to Sithanen’s future as finance minister; the budgetary measures will take some time to show the positive results that everyone is hoping for. He should therefore devote his time to ensure the success of those measures instead of wasting time dealing with the trivia thrown up by a special adviser who, true to form, is already thinking about his position after the next elections.
The next elections will be lost not because of Sithanen’s measures but because of the hugely immoral gap that has been allowed to grow between the rich and the poor in Paradise Island. How can anyone in government look at themselves in the mirror every morning and justify the Rs 1000 monthly salary paid to school cleaners? How can they justify annual salaries and expenses averaging Rs 5 millions to nincompoops appointed not because of their abilities but because of their expertise in arse licking? How can they justify a ser sintir policy that affects only the poor and the lower middle classes whilst the rest compete with each other to buy heavily discounted luxury cars? How can anyone accept the degenerate morality at the NHDC that allows well off people to share amongst them the houses built to accommodate the ever increasing army of the homeless in our country? Why hasn’t any one of those involved in that evil transaction been charged with the appropriate criminal offence?
Ramjuttun has apparently said this in one of the weekend papers: Dir Ramgoolam met moi deor! The Prime Minister ought to now do us all a huge favour by granting the wish of this intensely arrogant, self serving, loud individual. Ramgoolam needs to put a stop to the perception that he is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. There is simply no comparison between Sithanen, a man who I have often criticised but who at least has the courage of his convictions, and Ramjuttun, a man who has achieved hardly anything of note and therefore does not deserve the amount of ink wasted on him.
And Berenger or Pravin Jugnauth would be mad to even consider accepting such a disloyal man within their parties.
My God! Don’t we have so much fun when delusions of grandeur are grotesquely displayed in public in a vain attempt to hide the personal ambition bubbling away in the background? The hypocritical posturing and false concern for the poor has now reached farcical proportions with the invocation to a Superior Being for guidance in the apparently noble journey embarked upon by the special adviser. A weekly newspaper reported that Dinesh Ramjuttun recent outpourings are due to une force divine qui m’anime. The fact that none of us is witness to this supernatural phenomenon is neither here nor there, but most of us will inevitably ask ourselves this question: Why is God only now talking to this man when the budget he has taken great exception to is over two years old?
En cas de trahison, je pars! is the rather lurid headline from the same paper; Je peux partir a tout moment, menaces threateningly the good doctor, as if anyone is really bothered whether he stays or not. Such an intelligent man ought to perhaps realise that anyone ditching political partners with such monotonous regularity as he has done over the last twenty five years is not best qualified to pontificate about treachery and political subterfuge. He has become the acknowledged expert in realising which side his bread is buttered, and in his case he has always made sure that a healthy dollop of fruitful jam is added to the filling.
Of course, one must feel sorry that for the last two years Ramjuttun has been receiving only Rs 70,000 per month for his special brand of advice as he used to receive over Rs 200,000 per month plus fringe benefits when he was, yes you have guessed right, advising another nonentity in New York during the MMM/MSM government of 2000-2005. But I am sure the many arpents of prime State land at Pointe-Aux-Canonniers that he received from this government in 2005 will go a long way towards compensating him for the drop in his monthly salary…As he is shouting from the rooftops about injustice and transparency, perhaps he will tell us how much he is paying for that land. I bet you it will be a minute fraction of the amount that Sithanen is asking campement owners to pay for their leases; and you will never hear him complaining about the flagrant disparity and injustice in fiscal policy towards campements owners and those who like Ramjuttun pay peanuts for so called industrial leases for prime state lands a few yards away from those campements.
But what is he really complaining about? The National Residential Property Tax? We have already been assured that no one earning less than Rs 385,000 will have to pay anything, so what is his problem? Tax on interest on savings? Again, I am told that only those with deposits of more than Rs 2 millions will have to pay interest on those savings. Is Ramjuttun saying that anyone earning over Rs 385,000 or with savings over Rs 2 millions is poor and cannot contribute towards the funds required to pay for our free health service, free education, old age pensions, social security benefits, etc? What sort of society does this man really want? One where the rich and the comfortably off stuff their faces with more money that they can ever need to last a lifetime and cocoon themselves in enclaves of conspicuous wealth whilst turning a blind eye to the misery and poverty outside? What brand of selfishness allows those who can afford it to smugly say that they will not pay any taxes that will provide the basic services for those who can least afford it?
Ramjuttun argues that as Sithanen never contributed even one grain of sand for the construction of people’s houses, he should therefore not ask people to pay property taxes; this is shameless populism and piffling nonsense. This example of warped logic means that no government can ever raise any fiscal revenue as there will always be someone who will claim an exemption on highly dubious grounds. In any case, taxation has never been related to the amount of money that the government has poured down your throat; it is rather a means to take money from those who can afford it in order to provide for those who do not have the means for basic services. Throughout the ages, the purpose of taxation has been the ability to do 3 traditional things: raise cash for public services, redistribute from richer people to
Under the P.A.Y.E. system and the new 15% tax rate, Ramjuttun will be paying roughly Rs 10,000 rupees tax every month; perhaps he could tell us whether we are getting value for money from the Rs 55,000 net that we give him every month, without even taking into account the limousine that we have been compelled to also provide him. I am not aware of anyone ever asking us for permission to use our money to provide him with a fortune every month.
Nevertheless, his arguments about the removal of fiscal exemption for small planters are valid and the government ought to look again at this. It simply is not worth the hassle and for such a small sum.
But the real problem about Ramjuttun’s recent behaviour is not the daily rubbish pouring out of that garrulous mouth. It is the constitutional anomaly of a hand picked political appointee having the gall to criticise a government minister and the Prime Minister doing absolutely nothing to remind him of that glaring constitutional impropriety. Ramgoolam has often said that the budget belongs to his government and that he fully supports Sithanen in his role as architect of that budget. Therefore, one must logically conclude that Ramjuttun’s insults are directed at the government as a whole, and in particular to the person who leads that government. What is Ramgoolam’s response to this bare faced challenge to his authority? A three hour meeting with the loud mouth and an undertaking to arrange a meeting with the finance minister so that presumably they could kiss and make up following the upheaval caused entirely by someone paid handsomely to advise in private and to keep his mouth shut in public. I am surprised he did not offer him a GCSK medal too to reward such disloyalty!
Ramjuttun’s bravura display of arrogance, ignorance, and ceaseless solipsism has been mildly entertaining during the last fortnight; his eschatological fantasies about the destiny of this government if it fails to heed his self serving advice and his moralizing ideologies that have so far provided him with great personal benefits are beginning to get very tedious. Their presumptuousness and patronising dispositions are now close to driving sane people into screaming themselves into conniptions when they ask themselves this simple question: just what does it take for a Prime Minister to punish disloyalty, discourtesy, and gross insubordination, and to show real solidarity with his finance minister instead of the synthetic show of support that we are treated to every now and then?
Ramgoolam must surely know that his destiny as Prime Minister is inextricably linked to Sithanen’s future as finance minister; the budgetary measures will take some time to show the positive results that everyone is hoping for. He should therefore devote his time to ensure the success of those measures instead of wasting time dealing with the trivia thrown up by a special adviser who, true to form, is already thinking about his position after the next elections.
The next elections will be lost not because of Sithanen’s measures but because of the hugely immoral gap that has been allowed to grow between the rich and the poor in Paradise Island. How can anyone in government look at themselves in the mirror every morning and justify the Rs 1000 monthly salary paid to school cleaners? How can they justify annual salaries and expenses averaging Rs 5 millions to nincompoops appointed not because of their abilities but because of their expertise in arse licking? How can they justify a ser sintir policy that affects only the poor and the lower middle classes whilst the rest compete with each other to buy heavily discounted luxury cars? How can anyone accept the degenerate morality at the NHDC that allows well off people to share amongst them the houses built to accommodate the ever increasing army of the homeless in our country? Why hasn’t any one of those involved in that evil transaction been charged with the appropriate criminal offence?
Ramjuttun has apparently said this in one of the weekend papers: Dir Ramgoolam met moi deor! The Prime Minister ought to now do us all a huge favour by granting the wish of this intensely arrogant, self serving, loud individual. Ramgoolam needs to put a stop to the perception that he is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. There is simply no comparison between Sithanen, a man who I have often criticised but who at least has the courage of his convictions, and Ramjuttun, a man who has achieved hardly anything of note and therefore does not deserve the amount of ink wasted on him.
And Berenger or Pravin Jugnauth would be mad to even consider accepting such a disloyal man within their parties.
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1 Response to "Between the devil and the deep blue sea" 
|
said this on 26 Oct 2007 2:12:24 AM MUT
Very interesting article. RAJ's critical pieces are eye openers.
One error though: tax on interest on savings is applicable not only to deposits of more than Rs. 2m as says RAJ but to all deposits (provided one is taxable under the chosen category). |
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