Viable and workable projects should be presented in order to restore the

population’s belief in political parties.

People’s trust will be gained by the candidates and political parties only if the latter can demonstrate in their political manifestos that they have practical solutions to the problems with the view to improving the living standard of the people in general. The people want to see workable, viable programs and projects with time-bound measurable milestones and their progress periodically monitored with full visibility.

The political manifestos should not contain vague slogans or a shopping list of “wish” things which could not be achievable. The credibility of the manifestos will be judged by those  mandatory programs which would ensure that the government delivers “value for money” projects and high quality public goods and services in the most efficient manner and as inexpensively as possible with strict rigorous measurement and control. There is no place for hypocrisy, if we want to clean up the political scenery from those elements which have rot the system leading to the escalation of those “scandales du siècle” which have ripped off the trust of the people and paralysed the functioning of the democracy.

The people have lost trust and will not miss the opportunity to sanction those who say one thing but constantly do another and those who tell everybody else how to live whilst they themselves indulge their own whims and appetites, contrary to those principles which they preach. There is no doubt that the people will support those candidates and parties with whom they are coming to respect and trust.

The people will trust only, if actionable strategies could be elaborated to solve once and for all, the long withstanding problem of water availability to each of the domestic households. It is inadmissible that today we are still faced with this problem which is getting more and more acute every-day. It is inadmissible that we are still talking about the problem of water leakage of 50 % in the distribution network, just as at the beginning of the mandate and yet the people are being accused of wasting water during consumption because according to some holding responsible positions in the sector, the commodity is too cheap.

What a simplistic analysis when we know the cost of production of the lacking water is becoming more expensive because of the leakage in the distribution system? Water everywhere and yet not a drop to drink is a paradox for a country which is surrounded by water and which have a good rainfall pattern during the wet season.

The people will place their trust in well elaborated programme of economic measures to bridge the gap between the “haves and the have-nots”, to eliminate extreme poverty levels, to reduce significantly the inequality of income and to correct any social injustices. It is inadmissible that as reported by the Governor of the Bank of Mauritius, the ratio of income between the topmost and lowest employee in the private sector is about 200:1 and in the public sector, the disparity is also big despite not of the same magnitude than in the private

sector. This is a cause for concern for social cohesion and need to be urgently addressed. The poor cannot be made poorer and the rich, richer with the middle income earner being squeezed as ever like a sandwich.

The people will like to see well defined strategies with the necessary milestones, on how the 75,000 jobs being promised will be created. What are those jobs, when will they be created and in which sectors precisely will these jobs be provided ? This would be an essential piece of information to put up a master plan to direct the resources in the appropriate skills development, to provide productive quality education and to ensure efficiency in the use of local talents for the development of the country. The people are skeptical especially that in the past same sort of promises were made but with no effect, for example the 30,000 jobs which would be created with “Tianli” project. The project never materialized and there were no new pillars for job creation, worsening the situation with consequently an alarming high youth unemployment rate.

The people will trust only those with manifestos that are explicit on how the credibility and integrity of our institutions will be reinforced. The rule of law is sacrosanct and enshrined in our constitution but rules and laws have to be supplemented by some moral guides. What is legal is not necessarily always right but what is moral is always right.

Programs should be included for the reinforcement and development of virtues within public and private administrators to curb immoral behaviors and unprofessional sins in the delivery of services to  the people. Codes of ethics need to be developed and compliance to be monitored with prompt corrective actions wherever necessary. The Political manifestos should spell out clearly the measures for good economic governance to reduce the vested political and business interests by lobbyists.

The people need to know as well where economic growth and wealth will be created and how this wealth will be equitably distributed and the benefits extended to the poor and the vulnerable. Judicial reform needs to be contemplated to restore credibility of judicial institutions through systems which will speed up the delivery of justice, serve the interests of the deserving not the powerful, which will make the average and responsible citizen a beneficiary of law rather than a victim.

The people will trust only if there is a more transparency. When deals are made behind closed doors implying massive projects with massive public funds like new aircrafts, neotown, new identity cards and “Métro Léger” without any need to clarify the public queries, this is not transparency and this situation leads usually to all sorts of perception which most of the time, becomes reality.

Everything has to be accountable and it has to be understood that politicians work for the public welfare. The people elect them, the people pay them and they are answerable to the people. So when deals are made with foreign parties, the politicians and their nominees should respect the wishes of the people for information, to ensure that the representatives are not pushing their own agendas to make profit out of deals that are not beneficial for the nation. Likewise, the people are still perplexed that the report of the Director of the Audit has not yet been published. The people have thus been barred with an opportunity of scrutinizing the expenses of the outgoing government to see whether there has been any redress to the situation of repetitive wastages of public funds which have characterized the Audit reports year in and year out.

The role of the private media, social media and new information technologies to communicate directly with politicians and to demand more transparency and accountability, should be appreciated as a support to enlighten the people for the latter to make well informed choices, as opposed to the public funded broadcasting corporation which have become more of a political propaganda for the government of the day.

The people will trust those who hold to our constitution, who live with integrity, who exhibit courage in preserving our republic regardless of the temptations of power. The people will not trust any circumstances which will give too many comfortable and unchecked powers to those political leaders.

The constitution cannot be changed only to serve the selfish interests of two political leaders in order to accommodate an alliance arrangement between them. The people’s concerns onthis proposed major constitutional change for the 2nd republic are legitimate and therefore this project should be subject to public debate and scrutiny. The people will not trust any change which will bring democratic instability, irresponsible and unaccountable power and self-righteous leadership who are averse to criticisms and much more impressed with themselves than anybody and anything else.