BAD MOOD
Do we have an Energy minister

By Raj JUGERNAUTH

Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, rightly pointed out, during his last visit in Mauritius, that Navin Ramgoolam and the Labour party initiated the cyber island project. They were the first to seek Indian technical assistance in that field, he bluntly said.

This assertion, made at the Cyber Tower to a select audience surprised most of the guests. Not because the Indian PM had the guts to voice out this truth while he was the guest of ex-prime minister, Paul Bérenger, who was in fact seated by his side.

What surprised the guests was the fact that they could not equate the Labour party with innovative policies, foresight, and modern management. Equating the Labour party with inefficiency, mismanagement and bad governance, has been an advocacy coined in the pre-independence days.

It has been continuously delivered in a very subtle way by other parties long after. People have been blinded to many facts. Forgetting that it was the Labour party, which had the foresight of constructing the first highway from Phoenix to Port-Louis, of giving us television despite heavy criticism from the opposition. The list is too long to be entirely quoted here.

This leads us to ask ourselves what this present government would give as legacy to this country ? The economic reforms ? May be! But, apart from that, there would be very little done.

It seems that, except for the ministers of Finance and Agriculture, most of their colleagues are fast asleep.

To such an extent that it is today hard to recall the name of some of them. Do we have a minister for Energy ?

The PM said last week that he asked the Finance minister not to resign so that the economic reform could be carried out. But what about energy reforms ? We are under the impression that it is being carried out everywhere else, except in Mauritius. Even our neighbour, Reunion Island, is a long way ahead of us as far as renewable energy is concerned. They have their wind farms and the blades have resisted the last cyclone.

Mauritius has systematically brushed away any idea of wind energy, saying that cyclonic conditions will not allow such development. Some people at the CEB hold the same language.

This is the voice of vested interests who would like us to stick to bagasse and coal energy production. Wind farms have been constructed offshore to resist violent gusts.

Despite the PM’s effort to bring the Indian wind energy giant Suzlon to Mauritius, not much has been done.

Despite the present chairman’s beliefs in the future of wind energy, the country is lagging behind.

There have been no such things as fiscal incentives to Mauritians who would like to invest in small solar or wind energy units. No fiscal incentive has been given to the CEB for renewable energy projects. This situation has led to the failure of the project of a wind farm of 25 megawatts in Bigara. It has been deemed too costly for the CEB without fiscal incentive.

The minister of Energy has been quite silent on the future energy policy of the country. In fact we have heard little from him since the soap-box speeches for election. It is high time to kick him out of his slumber. It is also high time that the PM and Finance minister poke their noses into the renewable energy issue.