"April 1st: This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty four." Mark Twain

A whole year has passed us by and nothing has changed in Paradise Island; we are still subject to the inane lucubrations of politicians resolutely stuck in the delusion that pretentiousness and sanctimony are the aspects of their personalities that impress us the most. 365 days after we last played jokes on each other, we face the reality that an entire population has become nothing but the play toys ofsome people who still believe that meaningless slogans are the best way to convince us to vote for them.

Exactly a year ago, I urged the Prime Minister to get rid of the dead wood in his cabinet, and I wrote the following regarding Dharam Gokool:"...Which leaves us with the most incompetent and ludicrous minister of the lot: Dharam Gokhool. From his arrogant refusal to listen to arguments against his proposals for star colleges to his absolute incompetence and inaction over the problems at Aleemiah College, Dharam Gokhool has shown himself to be totally unsuited for the post of Minister of Education. He is the proverbial rabbit caught in the headlights and his seeming paralysis in the anarchy surrounding him is reminiscent of the young child hiding under the blankets in the hope that the nasty monster will simply vanish. He did nothing to quell the disquiet over the school bread issue and his department was entirely responsible for the lack of awareness of the targetting of subsidies on school fees, which led to parents panicking over the issue in February when they should have been made aware of it the previous July; none of the recommendations of Professor Subratty regarding the Aleemiah College have been put into practice;...There are many other examples of inaction, passivity, lack of concern, or saying the wrong thing entirely which demand that Gokhool is removed from office as soon as possible. He does not command the respect of neither teachers nor students and the most charitable thing for Ramgoolam to do would be to take him out of his misery and to gingerly place him on the backbenches." I am quoting my own paper simply to reassure readers that it is not a display of vanity but to point out the fact that I made the case for sacking Gokhool a long time ago and that I am not jumping on the current bandwagon to force the minister's resignation or sacking.

How has Gokool performed since? I am afraid the rabbit is still caught in the headlights, and when he manages against all the odds to move away, he opens his mouth to inevitably assail us with words reeking of complacency and arrogance that defy belief. Anyone of average intelligence and in his situation would have expressed his sympathies with the family of Laura Paul, the 13 year old schoolgirl who died so tragically last Wednesday, and ensured that the family received all the support that it needed during these traumatic days. That is all that could have been reasonably expected of him, given the tragedy that was unfolding in Mon Gout and the anger felt by all those who knew Laura. But the 'Professor' inexplicably ventured into a 'statistical analysis' of that fatal incident and by doing so lost any hope of anyone accepting the very vague possibility that we might, just might, have in him the right person as Minister of Education. And now he is telling us that he won't resign and that it is up to the Prime Minister to sack him!

I have no reason to believe that Gokool was deliberately callous and insensitive when he declared that it was unfortunate that one child out of 350,000 had died; I did listen to his radio interview and there is no doubt that his comment has been misinterpreted. Nevertheless, he ought to know that perception is everything in politics and his words gave the impression of a bureaucrat coldly playing the numbers game, and who was more attuned to the fact that 349,999 school kids got home safely than to the appalling circumstances that led to Laura's death. This perception, combined with nearly three years of execrable performance as Minister of Education, has now made his continued tenure of that office untenable. He ought to show some decency and resign. But we all know that our ministers rarely resign, even the 'brilliant' ones when they brag openly about cavorting with the opposition. Will Ramgoolam show the leadership that has been lacking so far in this situation and sack him? It will also afford him the opportunity to reshuffle his cabinet and to inject some badly needed fresh blood into a government that contains too many incompetent individuals.

But Gokhool should not be made to carry the can on his own. Our meteorological services have surpassed the level of mediocrity they plumbed to only 2 months ago when they changed a predicted Class 4 warning to one of 'All clear' within the space of half an hour. In the internet age, when anyone can access accurate weather reports for our region from a multitude of websites, the meteo staff was too busy watching for that one drop that would give the 100 millimetres reading that would then trigger the emergency measures needed to cope with the impending flooding. They were following protocol, you see, in the same way that eunuchs are emasculated in order to extinguish even the barest flicker of imagination and independent thought. And where was the man in charge of the meteo during the disasters of the last few days? Have a guess. Go on. Have a guess. It really is easy, and the answer should by now be an automatic response to any question about the gratuitous waste of public money and the long periods of absence of so called public servants. Yes, he was on mission! On yet another mission which has no benefits whatsoever for the country or for its citizens. And I bet you his per diem allowances for this mission will be between a third and half the total sums disbursed so reluctantly by the Social Security department to help those who have lost everything in these floods.

We will never know the identity of the idiot who misinformed the MBC and the media in general that those unfortunate people who had
lost everything will get three days allowance of Rs109 per day per person. It was inevitable that people would be upset and angry when their genuine expectations of 3 days' allowance were then unceremoniously reduced to just one day. But please don't expect the Minister of Social Security to investigate this prime example of laissez faire unprofessionalism; she is far too busy slotting in her diary the dates for the next socio cultural meeting where she probably believes her sense of self importance would be appreciated.

And what about the role of local authorities, planning departments, the environment ministry? What about the people laughably known as sanitaireswho devote their time almost exclusively to sampling the delights of restaurants and dholl puri sellers presumably to stop us from getting food poisoning but who never seem to have the time to deal with real issues of hygiene affecting so many of us due to the carelessness of others? I am afraid it comes down to one thing: the appointment and over promotion of a small army of idiots in all areas of public service as a result of corruption, nepotism, and the malign, evil influence of politicians of all parties; the same politician who will tell you with a straight face that we form part of ene sel pei, ene sel nation whilst striving hard to ensure that only individuals sharing his religion, community, or caste will get promoted. And we end up with individuals placed in positions of authority who could not make a decision to even save their own bloody lives, never mind the lives of others. We are plagued with numerous idiots in positions of authority who simply have not got the l'etoffe to fulfil the responsibilities of the job obtained through corruption and political patronage.

The opposition is rightly condemning Gokhool and the meteo for the tragedies of last Wednesday. However, not one of them has even mentioned the effects of global warming and our desecration of the environment as one of the likely causes for such a drastic change in our weather system. The height of hypocrisy will be reached on April 1st when the fools will shed crocodile tears over the inevitable rise in petrol prices. But what else can be done when the price of oil has now reached $110 per barrel? Subsidise the motorists again even though most of them can get their brand new cars at duty free prices on top of generous traveling allowances and the roads are clogged up with traffic? I really wish journalists will not just sit still in press conferences and instead ask the false merchants of sincerity and sympathy this simple question: given the price of oil on the world markets, tell us what price would you consider as reasonable? And how would you make up the shortfall in your proposals and the actual cost?

The race for the most stupid statement on prices and inflation started on Saturday, and Berenger, the acknowledged master of hyperbole, has a predictable lead over the rest. He considers it 'inacceptable' that the CEB has increased its tariff by 20% whilst failing to mention how this dinosaur of an industry will tackle its billions of rupees debt; he then makes the ludicrous charge that Mauritius is the only country in the world where inflation has doubled from 5% to 10,7%, whilst conveniently forgetting how his bon Kamarad Mugabe is now presiding over an inflation rate of 100,000% in Zimbabwe; how inflation in Russia has more than doubled to 12%; how China has had to impose taxes on grain exports of between 5 and 25% in order to control its own rampant inflation, and (whisper it, as it would never happen in Paradise island) introduced a fuel tax of 25% in order to reduce domestic consumption; how inflation in Japan has risen at its fastest rate for the last nine years; how Vietnam recorded an inflation rate of 12.63% last year; how inflation in Saudi Arabia is at its highest for the last ten years, whilst the United Arab Emirates currently show an inflation rate of 9.3%, the highest in the last 20 years. All around the world, inflation has been steadily rising due to the rapid increase in basic food prices and the doubling of oil prices. In Paradise Island, we have fools who want to win power by any means possible and who therefore want to convince people that we live on a different planet to the rest of the world.

Then we have the Governor of the Bank of Mauritius, a political appointee, who wants us to believe that a salary of Rs200,000 per month is insufficient to plug the trou in his pockets, and that he will continue to draw a nominal Rs 10 as his monthly salary. Aah! Doesn't it warm the cockles of your heart to see such selfless sacrifice by someone willing to servi nou pei for nothing? He forgot to mention that during the year since his appointment, we have given him over Rs3 million in per diem allowances for all those ever so important missions, together with a chauffeur driven, brand new limousine, etc. Let us look at the obscenity of this scenario: 2 missions, each lasting a fortnight, has provided this patriot with over Rs 900,000 whilst those who have lost their lifetime possessions during the floods received in total far less. Let me whisper this in his ears in case it wakes him up from his self serving complacency and arrogance: why don't you just resign if you feel so hard done by, instead of annoying the hell out of us with your sob stories of sacrifice and self denial? There are many Mauritians, far better qualified than this failed politician, who would happily do the job at the salary he treats with such condescension and with much greater competence than he has shown so far.

April Fool's day is here again, and Mark Twain's dictum remains peculiarly apposite to our situation in Mauritius. Fools pretending to be more intelligent than they are have convinced themselves that it is so easy to con the fools that we are on the remaining 364 days for believing their fairy tales of competence, sacrifice, and desire to improve the lives of everyone.

It won't work anymore; and if Ramgoolam is the astute politician that he likes to think he is, he will listen to public opinion for once and sack Gokhool immediately. Hoping that the fact finding committee will give him sufficient time to do nothing will be the wrong move and will sound the political death knell for his government.

Laura Paul's memory deserves nothing less than those responsible for this squalid level of incompetence to be sanctioned so that others can at last understand the sacred covenant of the public servant towards those he has pledged to serve.

R.A.J.
Email: servipei@yahoo.com