Editorial
President Michel breaks yet another election promise!
This week the Minister of Finance, Minister Danny Faure went before the National Assembly to spectacularly announce the centre piece of his budget speech. The attraction this time around was the tax break given to businesses which in effect means that businesses would now not be taxed on profit up to a ceiling of Rs.250,000. This is a move away from the previous Rs.48, 000 limit set by the government.
President Michel canvassed strongly on this point as the centre piece of his election campaign. The promise of a tax break was a sweetener promised to the electorate. It may be credited to have been the deciding factor which swayed the voters towards Michel at the last minute as the polls clearly showed that the opposition was ahead at one stage in the July election.
However, President Michel never once made it public that the benefits of the tax break will not accrue to Companies. Many have belatedly realised that the news of a tax break was in fact too good to be true and that there was a “catch” somewhere. This is more so as the SPPF is not historically known to be a party of pro low taxes, free trade and free market. The business community was thus taken by surprise when Michel made the promise of a tax break the centre piece of his election manifesto.
Many are now disappointed that companies have now been excluded from the benefits of this policy and cannot understand the justification for the exclusion. The Minister of Finance clearly stated in his budget speech that the law will only apply to Sole Traders, Partnerships and Individuals and would not apply to Companies. Many companies make less than Rs.250, 000 a year in profit and it is expected that a lot of these companies would abandon their corporate status and opt for sole trader, partnership or individual status in order to benefit from the newly introduced legislation. The revelation that companies would be excluded from the benefits of this law also shows that President Michel has broken yet another electoral pledge. Many are now complaining that during his election campaign President Michel never stated that Companies would be excluded. The electorate was thus duped in voting for him in the expectation that they would benefit from his new policies only to find that this is not at all the case.
LIES, DAMN LIES AND LOUSTEAU LALANNE
Mr Maurice Lousteau-Lalanne, the civil servant who was awarded the unprecedented sum of SR350,000 in damages by Supreme Court Judge Ranjan Perera against Regar newspaper has been quoted in the Government daily newspaper Nation as having to lie to people overseas when he was asked about the incident of October 3rd. It is a shame that Mr Lousteau-Lalanne has to lie to protect the Government he works for and the political leaders who appointed him to his post. Perhaps he should remind his Ministerial superiors that by ordering the police to club their political opponents in the opposition on their heads will inevitably result in bad publicity for the country.
Is President Michel Getting Cold Feet?
The much awaited economic reforms promised for October 2006, the month of reckoning for President Michel, have sadly not materialised. October has come and October has gone. As the population waited with bated breath for President Michel to announce his masterpiece which was to catapult Seychelles into the realms of modern economies and transform our society from third world to first world, nothing happened. Except for the fact that there was a slight change in policies allowing banks to keep more of their foreign exchange rather than give 60% of it to the Central Bank as was the case before, absolutely nothing happened. However, banks have complained that this is like giving someone a river after all the water has been extracted or drained from it, as Central Bank has already taken all the foreign exchange from the Commercial Banks. The impressions given are that banks will as a result have more foreign exchange to give its customers. This is a fallacy which is clearly not true. As President Michel implored us to judge him by his actions it is apparent that the Presidency has been characterised more by omissions rather than actions. President Michel, it appears, either does not have the guts to reform the economy or he is being halted by more powerful forces beyond his control. Whatever the reason, President Michel should not get “cold feet” and should be brave enough to grab the bull by the horns. Otherwise history will judge him as the “lame duck” President who had the perfect opportunity to change the course of our history but failed miserably!
