Mauritius: Heaven in Africa

Refused external interference. The picturesque Indian Ocean island Ignored the IMF and the World Bank Structural Adjustment gospel of the 80s and 90s and did what it thought was right. Today, its government provides free primary and secondary education, health, and public transport.

American humorist Mark Twain visited the Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius in 1896, and later quoted a local resident as saying: “Mauritius was made first and then heaven; and heaven was copied after Mauritius.”

In all aspects of its life, the tiny Island is a corner of paradise in Africa. Education is free (for both primary and secondary), with the government providing free school transport; and health care is also free, including open-heart surgery and eye laser treatment.

Malaria has virtually been eradicated. And, with a life expectancy of over 60 years, Mauritians live long enough to see their grandchildren. Other than the pleasure of interacting with the little ones, from the age of 60, the senior citizens receive pension from government, and enjoy free transport to and from anywhere.

Many people in this country do not live in mortal fear of landlords since 86 per cent of the people hole up in their own homes — the highest home-ownership rate in the world. And every home, okay, 99 per cent of them, have access to clean drinking water and sanitary facilities.

There is much more about this island that changed hands thrice between its colonisers; French, British, and the Dutch —who named it Mauritius — after Prince Maurice of Nassau, the “steward” of the Netherlands. The majority of Mauritians can afford a decent, daily helping of the local delicacy, Rougaille Poison (salt fish on tomato sauce) as only one per cent of the population scraps on less than a dollar a day, according to the United Nations Human Development Index. After a grand meal, residents swill Phoenix beer in relative mental and throaty peace, chatting in Mauritian Creole and watching French TV programmes.

No country in sub-Saharan Africa, since independence, has achieved what Mauritius has mastered, including a sustained and annual economic growth rate of 4.6 per cent, hold on for it — since 1977. The sub-Saharan average is 2.9 per cent. So what did Mauritius do right?

First, it refused to be a guinea pig for World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) of the late 1980s, early 1990s. The SAPs were policies implemented in Third World countries as conditions for foreign aid or for renegotiating favourable loan repayment rates. The basic motive was to have loans used for intended purposes and for debts to be repaid.

But SAPs had other conditions such as liberalising the economy, privatising state-owned firms, and promoting export-driven growth. Countries were also required to devalue their currencies against the dollar, lift import-export restrictions, balance budgets, not overspend, and remove state subsidies and price controls.

Structural Adjustment Programmes had dire effects on developing countries that adopted them. Think Kenya during the Moi administration.

A devalued currency made goods cheaper to foreigners and prohibitive to importers. The IMF was mean with debt-ridden countries, which raised taxes to balance national budgets. So, most governments cut back on spending in public spending in education and health, retrenching thousands of workers.

Job losses meant parents could hardly afford school fees. School enrolment plummeted and educational standards fell. With a devalued currency, everything imported became expensive, including medicine, which under the SAPs; citizens had to pay for, alongside health care.

Many African countries had little choice, so they swallowed the SAPs hook, sinker and multimillion dollar loans. Mauritius took a different line. It turned its nose up at the World Bank and IMF regarding the SAPs. It negotiated its loans such that, “It agreed on the end results but not on the prescription,” notes social science researcher, Amedee Darga, a former MP in Mauritius. In an essay titled, The Mauritius Success Story and contained in Omelets Mbeki’s Advocates for Change.

Dirge elaborates that Mauritius “refused to eliminate subsidies on staple food and the cost of recovery on education and health.”
Mauritius had challenges to contend with, though. It was and still is, just a pimple on the Indian Ocean. Its 2,040 square kilometres with 1.3 million inhabitants. It was, and is still not a political powerhouse, geopolitically speaking. And besides its people and land, it has no natural resources worth clapping in glee about.

The government, collaborating with the private sector, had to work out measures to cut deficits. A hardheaded approach to its challenges included identifying desired objectives, then shaping the means of achieving them. The objectives were: Employment for all, sustainable welfare for the people, and growing national wealth and ensuring its equitable distribution.