Seychelles today is a bit like Plantation Club in its present predicament. In the case of Plantation Club, Judge Perera has now appointed a liquidator to wind up the affairs of the holding Company, Ailee Development. In the case of Seychelles, Minister Danny Faure has been forced to appoint the IMF to take over the financial affairs of the country. This is like appointing IMF as liquidator to wind up the country similar to the way a liquidator would wind up a company. This has come about because Seychelles is quite simply unable to pay its debts to other countries, financial institutions and investors. Seychellois can expect to brace themselves for the worse. After an endless cycle of excessive borrowing and spending, the party is now all over. The SPPF government has been forced, by circumstances, to throw in the towel and call in the IMF. This is no laughing matter.
The IMF is not expected to come and drink hot tea with SPPF and make pleasantries at State House whilst admiring the furniture. Remember the Argentina experience not so long ago. True they do not get it perfect every time (invariably they do get it wrong) but the cataclysmic damage caused to a country when they do get it wrong is too painful to even contemplate. They are a bit like our own Irish boys in President Michel’s favourite organization, the NDEA, in that sense. They will come in, turn the country upside down search in every nooks and cranny and then prescribe the bitter medicine to get the patient out of ICU. In a way, they can be compared to a doctor attending to a critically ill patient. They will make a few cuts here and there, an incision in some very uncomfortable part of the body, all with the specific objective of saving a life.
The whole exercise is excruciatingly painful but the patient will eventually be taken out of ICU and be put on D’offay Ward where he is expected to convalesce and make a full recovery. The only question is how long will it take for the patient to get back to full health. If it drags for too long the consequences will be very dire indeed as there will be elections in 2011. SPPF expects the whole exercise to start and end quickly; something like a short sharp shock therapy, in time for the next election. If the patient does not make a full recovery very quickly indeed then there may be death. Death, in this context, means a routing for the SPPF at the polls in 2011 where the possibility that the electorate will finally send them packing into oblivion is more real than imaginary. Is Ramka up to the challenge yet? Only time will tell!