Africa-Press – Mauritius. The national budget will have been amply analyzed and screened by both economists and those who sought signs of electoral populism that might indicate the proximity of general elections. We will not add more floss to the debates if only to select and highlight a couple of more curious measures, some posited as boldly innovative.
Of that category, undoubtedly the proposal to pull down the 10-storey Emmanuel Anquetil Building in the heart of the capital in favour of a ground level « mini tropical forest » of a few hundred sq metres must hold pride of place!
It must be said that the soviet-style architectural bunker is not particularly attractive, but one cannot doubt its utter engineering solidity that did not seem to call for drastic demolition.
We learned from this Thursday’s PNQ in Parliament from Minister Hurreeram, that a 2016 report seems to have highlighted the prohibitive costs of demolition as opposed to other alternatives of refurbishment.
And that this budgetary measure, which must have received Cabinet’s blessing, was merely a proposal that would require full-fledged technical studies before it could even be entertained, and a decision taken. His Cabinet colleagues, and Finance, in particular, must have gulped hard at such brazen admission of what sounds like giddy light-headedness.
En passant, its pull-down may well require dynamite by an experienced professional team, that would be a first in our annals! But not being from Port-Louis, either for home or work, we can only marvel at the picture of a variety of tropical animals, land tortoises, stags, crocodiles, or macaques on display for our capital’s lucky inhabitants and, added Minister Bobby Hurreeram, flocking tourists! Enough to digest what has been perpetrated at the venerable Champ de Mars, a few hundred metres away?
The second measure that showed the Minister in his bolder, more creative, attire, is the one-off grant of Rs 20 thousand rupees promised to all 15,000 of our youths attaining 18 years of age during the coming year.
Honestly, I don’t think anybody saw such forthright « goodie » populism coming to the point that government ministers and backbenchers were hard pressed to justify the utility of the measure against a volley of criticisms.
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