Mauritius Times: Samuel Adams wrote years back that "it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds". Would you say that the majority has prevailed this time around insofar as the government-MSPA agreement is concerned?  

Nita Deerpalsing: The voice of the people has prevailed and therefore yes, the majority has prevailed and that's just how it should be.

Maybe it hasn't yet sunk into people's mind just what the Prime Minister has achieved both in terms of averting a selling out of the soul of the Labour Party and in terms of marking a defining moment for the future of this country.

You know there are some people such as those in the Opposition who seem to have no problem making enemies with their conscience, assuming they have one to start with. So some people believe it is perfectly normal to, for example, win an election on a democratisation platform and then do exactly the contrary once in power. Others like some members of the MMM in Parliament even have thought it appropriate to deride those of us who genuinely put all our sincerity in our campaign for the democratisation of the economy. So they say things like "some people actually believed in their campaign theme, they don't realize that this was just to win elections". To me this kind of attitude is utterly reprehensible and is nothing short of electoral fraud.

The Prime Minister has demonstrated that this kind of attitude has no place in his party and under his leadership. This is a matter of pride for us in the Labour Party.

It is clear that there was a tireless group of people who orchestrated a press campaign to threaten, blackmail or force the Prime Minister to go with the MAAS as had been planned. What was not alluded to, if not said overtly or said in private? That he was being irresponsible about 301 million euros of accompanying measure - a figure which turned out to be sheer false propaganda since the actual correct figure for accompanying measures is 127.5 million euros; that he was being influenced by "passeiste" ideologues (as if the bunch of those who believe in a hegemony of neocons are neither "passeiste" nor "ideologues"), that he was nurturing incoherence within his ruling majority - as if subscribing to something that would have been equivalent to one Illovo deal per year for perpetuity would not have been the greatest incoherence the Prime Minister would have shouldered in the eyes of History.

Throughout this, the Prime Minister has shown that he's influenced only by his contract with the people, so yes indeed, through him, the voice of the majority has prevailed and not that of a bunch of neocons who operate via a certain press group.

* What if the MSPA renege on its commitments? Will "Plan B" with the retrospective taxes of the windfall gains realized by the IPPs at the expense of consumers, etc., then come into play? 

-- You know I chuckle when I hear some people say that there was no Plan B after all. If only they knew how dead wrong they are! But then again, maybe I'm the one who was mistaken in my perception of things...

Government is sovereign which means it can always take any action it deems to be appropriate for the long-term interests of the people and of the nation. But I don't really believe that the question of MSPA reneging on its commitments even arises. They would have too much to lose.

* That's "no big deal"; "Navin Ramgoolam has missed an opportunity to extract more from the private sector", and "the Illovo deal was even better" - that's how the opposition party leaders have tried to play down the Govt-MSPA agreement. Could it have been better with due respect to the rule of law?

-- Let me first briefly talk about the Illovo deal. The opposition should be thoroughly ashamed of even mentioning the words "Illovo deal". Let me remind you of the circumstances under which the Illovo deal went through.

The State Law Office did NOT approve it and advised AGAINST it. So what do you do when the people's legal advisers tell you it's against the people's interest? Well if you are a "democrate-à-la-mauricienne" whose heart seems to be bleeding very often these days for all kinds of things such as trade union issues or alleged non-respect of procedures, then of course you cavalierly ignore what the people's legal advisers say, you go and find yourself somebody in the private sector, you take money from the people's pocket to pay for his priceless rubber stamping of what you wanted to do all along.

How's that for respect of institutions? How's that for respect of the people of this country? Never mind the financial subsidies handed out to those who are the most economically powerful. The publicly known figure runs in the billions (who knows what the true figure is) which represents, on a conservative basis, at least some 10 years of government subsidies on flour. TEN years of subsidies on flour given over to the coffers of the most economically powerful in just one transaction called the Illovo deal. Indeed, I don't think anyone can do better than that "mari-deal", except perhaps the MMM itself of course!

Now about those who are saying that it's not a big deal, I think it's pretty obvious to anyone that these are people of bad faith, who are really sour grapes about this landmark achievement by the Prime Minister.

There are also some people who are claiming that the MAAS has not changed one iota. Nothing could be further from the truth. I really don't know whether it's ignorance, laziness, or amateurism which leads to such poor journalistic statements. Or maybe it's a feature of the job to just lap up whatever is said in some quarters and publish it as fact. When I see such ridiculously false statements, I ask myself just how many of all these journalists and editorialists who have written in pontificating tones on the issue have really read the MAAS from start to finish, including Annex 1 which is the full Landel Mills report? 

Let me give you some examples as to how drastically the MAAS has changed under the impetus of the Prime Minister.

1) First on the energy issue. Anyone who'd have taken the trouble to read the MAAS, would note that it called for the setting up of SIX new power plants, five of 42 MW and one of 35 MW. This means prior to the Prime Minister subjecting the MAAS under scrutiny by his sub-committee, we were looking at building 6 NEW IPPs which would have a total capacity of 245 MW (5x42+35). It's usually assumed that these power plants run for 8,000 hours a year which means you'd get some 1,960,000 MWh (245x8000) if you translate capacity into units of power. In terms of kWh, this is 1,960,000,000 units of power. 

It's very easy to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation of what this translates to in terms of future financial payment to the sugar sector by the population according to what MAAS originally called for. If you use a rough figure of about Rs 3 for each kWh, then the 6 new IPPs that MAAS was calling for with their total of 1,960,000,000 kWh would have meant a staggering 5.8 BILLION rupees per year of new business for the sugar sector. This was what was planned in MAAS, paragraph 5, page 5.

However, when the Prime Minister set up the sub-committee to investigate the energy issue, it soon became obvious that that plan was grossly exaggerated and that the population would be paying for kWh that it would not even be consuming! The competence of the CEB technicians as well as the committed personal involvement and leadership of Minister Kasenally was priceless in spending arduous long hours pouring over the numbers and undertaking a thorough analytical study of the plan set out in MAAS. And after several weeks of sub-committee meetings and meetings between CEB technicians and MSPA representatives, guess what the 245 MW number has changed to? We're now talking of only some additional (new) ...25 MW to be installed!!! That's 200,000,000 kWh compared to the original MAAS-led 1,960,000,000 kWh. And if we use the same figure of Rs 3 per kWh, that's Rs 600,000,000 instead of the MAAS-led 5.8 BILLION rupees per year!! (This is why I said earlier that going with the MAAS as originally planned would have been equivalent to one Illovo deal per year for years and years ahead!).

Should I rest my case about whether MAAS has changed with the Prime Minister taking charge of this dossier? I could, but please allow me to continue with some other examples.

2) MAAS called for small planters to sell their stand-alone cane, which means they'd get some price (guess what that would have been if the Prime Minister had not intervened!) and they'd have to forget about any value-added by products along the value chain. The small planters were wild about this and they had said that they'd never get into such cane cultivation agreements. Now with the setting up of a mechanism which would ensure a fair market price for all by-products, we're very far ahead of what MAAS had scandalously proposed.

3) With the agreement that the non-corporate sector would hold 35% equity in milling, refinery and distillery activities, this is a far cry from a nebulous one-line statement in MAAS. And let me add that this share of 35% will apply THROUGHOUT the value chain which means any activity starting from when the cane is planted to the time it reaches the customer on some supermarket shelf in Europe. This in itself represents a MAJOR stride for small planters and workers of the cane industry!

Somebody characterized this as "nous fine sorti depi 20% dans vieux ferraille pou alle ziska 35% dans l'or blanc (refined sugar)»; and I fully agree with that. This is indeed a tremendous quantitative and qualitative change and it cannot be compared to the 20% SIT got in milling companies in the past. In any case, anyone with a bit of intellectual honesty knows that SIT was only financially redeemed when it engaged in real estate activities, so the Labour Party has been absolutely right all along on this question.

4) MAAS had no provision for the sugar sector to consider including the metayers as winners of the reform let alone any plan to cede any land to the public. It's only when the Prime Minister took charge of the dossier that this became part of the requirements for an agreement.

5) MAAS calls for 4 refineries which in itself is an incredibly incoherent "strategic" proposition given the total lack of economies of scale that goes with the setting up of 4 instead of just 1 refinery and given that the whole document is about centralization in order to get economies of scale. Now we're down to 2 refineries to be set up. 

I could go on with dozens of other changes brought to the MAAS with the work done by the sub-committees set up by the Prime Minister, but I'm guessing I've given you enough examples for now. It goes without saying that the Prime Minister has concretely and significantly turned things around from what was about to unfold if we had gone strictly according to MAAS.

* We do not have as yet precise details of what have been agreed by both parties, but is it your understanding that this will usher in the beginning of the democratisation process of the economy as had been canvassed by the L'Alliance sociale during the last electoral campaign? I suppose that you would also support the idea that such agreements should be made public rather than dressing them up in a cloak of secrecy as the notorious IPP-CEB agreements...

-- The agreement that the PM had with the MSPA has rightly been coined as a defining moment of his prime ministership and that of the country. A defining moment is never a one-off event. It's a breakthrough that ushers in a real paradigm shift towards more "ouverture" as rightly analysed by Mr Lindsay Rivière. By the way, I do think that Mr Rivière is absolutely spot on when he says that the PM has shown "une volonté de non seulement gagner des élections mais aussi de véritablement renverser l'ordre établi et de faire Maurice passer à autre chose, à une époque nouvelle."

But I don't know why that would be or should be so surprising to anyone. Isn't this the reason why people engage in politics? If engagement in politics boils down only and strictly about winning elections - not that that is not important - but not about what to do with the power conferred by the people to bring qualitative change in society or in people's lives, then I fail to see what all the hassle of political engagement is really worth.

This is why the Prime Minister's achievement goes well beyond the narrow issue of the sugar/cane industry. It was also about whether we could have a Prime Minister who promises something to the people in Opposition and then does exactly the contrary when in power as it has been the case with the MMM (lest anyone has forgotten, the 1976 MMM's manifesto talked about "l'oligarchie sucrière", "14 familles", etc.). One may agree or disagree with the PM's vision of inclusive development in Mauritius but no one could ever say "Cet homme a trahi".

About making the agreement with MSPA public, I don't think we can talk about any cloak of secrecy when the PM himself held a press conference precisely to inform the population about the agreement. The information contained in the agreement was taken up again through a PNQ. As far as I know, all there is to know about the agreement is already in the public domain. 

* The government side has given way to the proposal of the MSPA regarding the 2000 arpents to be channelled through the Empowerment Programme. Are you comfortable with that?

-- I believe there is some confusion or misinformation here. From my understanding, channelling the land through the Empowerment Program was a suggestion of the government side in order to demonstrate its good faith. The land obtained will not be the property of the Empowerment Program to do what it pleases with it. It is a public good that has to be used in line with government policy. And let me remind you that policy setting is done by government.

* As far as the energy issue is concerned, the Prime minister had publicly expressed his determination to negotiate new and lower electricity rates from the Independent Power Producers, so it all boils down basically to the question of rates. Can't this be negotiated within an agreed timeframe by local experts? We are not calling in World Bank experts, are we? 

-- I don't think that the job of the independent experts will only boil down to a question of rates. I think they will have a much more complex task and this is where I sure hope we don't call in recipe men from the World Bank who come prepared with a solution in their suitcase regardless what the problem at hand is. Besides I think people like Jack Bizlall, other CEB personnel, etc., should have a chance to submit their views to these international experts. There are also a number of points on which the public deserves to obtain more information or clarification. For example, the Landel Mills report and MAAS shows that the cost of production of sugar in Mauritius is the same as that in Denmark. Is this because our workers have the same level of salary as the Danish workers?

I have to say that a lot of groundwork has indeed been covered by the energy sub-committee set up by the Prime Minister. This sub-committee was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister Dr Beebeejaun and included Minister Kasenally. I was a member of that sub-committee and I can assure you that both the DPM and Minister Kasenally were absolutely brilliant in their dedication, their support and their guidance to the team. If we've gotten so far today, a lot of the credit also goes to them. In the committee meetings, there was a no-nonsense attitude, the DPM and Minister Kasenally were treated with the respect and decorum that their positions called for and not with any over familiarity-that-breeds-contempt kind of attitude. In those meetings there wasn't even the slightest suggestion that the MSPA were there to talk to people who were there to advance their cause. Besides, both the DPM and Minister Kasenally were well documented, brilliantly prepared so that any wishy-washy arguments were sharply shot down.

Minister Kasenally's technical committee meetings were well organized, and full information and collaboration was available to everyone who had to work over the numbers, etc. His involvement and his attitude gave the excellent technicians even more confidence that they were to look after national long-term interests and not narrow vested interests. I have to say it was a real joy working with that team of professionals who were not just mere technocrats but who also had a clear vision of the historical importance of the work that they were doing. They were also well grounded into the political economy context of the moment.

* What did the feelers from the negotiating room indicate? Did you get the feeling that there is within the younger generation at the helm of the private sector today men alive to the need of a new paradigm that takes into account the interests of all stakeholders and not heavily skewed in favour of a few, that acknowledge that a better sharing of benefits indeed makes better business sense?

-- I think I can only refer you once again to Mr Rivière's editorial. Those who are more conservative in that circle would do well to heed his advice. In South Africa, some enlightened people engineered a revolution from the top before it exploded on them from the bottom.

In every group of people you have some progressive thinkers, some who are rabid conservatives and others who are in-between. All progress in humanity has been ushered by progressive thinkers whether we think of the right to vote for women or the abolition of slavery with the work of William Wilberforce amongst others, or the dismantling of apartheid and so on. But it's never an easy task because the conservatives, the neocons are usually very powerful in terms of voice and finance. They have also have a sticky floor mentality. For example look at the senseless clinging of some people of the Hindu community to the idea that some people are born superior just on the basis of so-called caste considerations. This is despite the fact that the sequencing of the human genome has given unequivocal scientific evidence that the differences with which we are socialized are the result of nurture and not nature. 

* Whilst the Govt-MSPA negotiations were on and possibly acrimonious discussions were taking place, the Prime Minster referred to the financial clout of the sugar barons who, he said, would likely spare no efforts to run him down. Hasn't the time come for looking seriously into public financing of political parties in order to neutralize the harm that financiers can wreak to the democratic process?

-- Yes, you're right, something needs to be done about the financing of political parties. But I'm afraid that that won't be enough because the funding of political parties at election time is only the tip of the iceberg. I don't have the answers but I think we should also look into the financing of individual politicians, over and above party financing. 

I've said this before and I was admonished by some people, but I'll say it again. Forget about elections for a moment. Think about how much it costs to finance the thousands of requests which if fulfilled can make any idiot, the most popular politician on earth. You've got those who need to contract a bus for a day to go somewhere. Then you have those who in good faith organize activities to do with sports, awareness workshops on social issues, senior citizens, religion, women, children, etc. How many of these do you think an MP or a Minister gets in a month? What is the total cost? And how is it all financed throughout the mandate whether in power or in opposition?

Maybe people from various types of associations who approach individual politicians for financial funding of their activities don't realize what they are getting into because everyone thinks they are the only ones requesting money from politicians. 

But the fact is that an MP or Minister could easily get one of these requests every single day. If you cost one such request at say Rs 1,000 that's Rs 30,000 a month just in "donations/contributions"; or if you want to be more cynical, in "operating expenses" of a constituency. Now an MP earns a basic salary of some Rs 35,000, a Minister something like Rs 80,000. If you take into account that these are people who probably have a house to run, kids to educate - some overseas, how do the numbers add up? If one does not have a huge personal fortune to draw from, where does the money come from for the "day-to-day" running of a constituency? Surely you're not going to tell me from savings accounts!

If the money comes from anonymous "benefactors" who take a keen interest in you being "popular" with your constituents, then will you as an MP or a Minister be able to say no to your financial benefactor when he needs a "favour" which requires you acting as his lobbyist in Parliament or in Cabinet so that his interest actually becomes national interests? Did you for example catch the hysteria of a couple of the members of one of the opposition parties in Parliament on the question of hospital laundry? So the question should not be narrowed down only to party financing, the perpetual ongoing financing of individual politicians also deserves a good scrutiny and a re-think.