Après le Fonds monétaire international, c’est au tour de la Banque mondiale de mettre à mal la politique fiscale de Maurice. Dans un document de 177 pages, l’instance régulatrice évoque notamment le projet Metro Express et les Rs 60 milliards accordées par la Banque centrale au gouvernement. Ci-dessous, les points qui retiennent particulièrement l’attention: 

196. The increasing reliance on off-budget funds and Central Bank involvement in fiscal activities have weakened the effectiveness of public financial management. In the recent past, major capital projects have been managed off-budget using Special Purpose Vehicles. For instance, the Metro Express light rail is owned by a Special Purpose Vehicle financed through a combination of government funds and support from India. And significant amounts of public investment are channeled through extra-budgetary Funds such as the National Resilience Fund, National Environment Fund and, more recently, the Covid-19 Projects Development Fund. At the same time, Covid-19 response measures were extensively financed by the Central Bank (…) 

95 : the effectiveness of the budgetary process and medium-term fiscal framework to manage and control expenditure. Fiscal risk is increasingly hard to ascertain, as contingent liabilities arise from the operations of SPVs, weakening of the Central Bank’s balance sheet, and its exposure to significant commercial risk. Strengthening the key function of the budget and MTFF to plan and monitor public finances in a transparent manner will be critical for the government’s ability to manage the fiscal consolidation efforts ahead and make more efficient use of public resources (…)

197. The precedent set by Central Bank transfers to the budget could affect the credibility of monetary policy and fiscal consolidation efforts. While Central Banks around the world have pushed the boundary of what would have been considered highly unorthodox government financing measures not long ago, the 60 bln MRU transfer stands out for its non-refundable nature and size (13.5 percent of GDP). While conceived as a one-off measure under unprecedented circumstances, the legal amendment to the Bank of Mauritius act that enabled this transfer has yet to be reversed (…)

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