Public interest

In a press statement, the minister of good governance said that it was “in the public interest” that he wished to get to the bottom of how the Heritage City project had come to be shelved. Is it in the interest of the country that such undertaking brings discredit on government? At a time when ministries have to focus all of their energy on day-to-day implementation of budgetary measures, the presumed “feel-good factor” that followed the budget’s presentation has fizzled out. Moreover, a series of events have exposed bad governance on the part of a government that, ironically, created a ministry of good governance.

Those who make simplistic contrasts between ‘public’ and ‘private’ insinuate that the former means selfless or benevolent whereas the latter implies selfish or greedy. Hence the emphasis on the desirable ‘public interest’, ‘public service’, ‘public investment’ and ‘public goods’ like road infrastructure. The word ‘public’ is the most abused and misleading term in the vocabulary of politics. To sell a doubtful policy that he cannot justify, the politician calls it one of ‘public interest’.

Public choice economics, also known as the economics of politics, studies the political process of decisions made by government officials (ministers, civil servants, public officers) supposedly for the good of the people. One of its leading proponents, Gordon Tullock, posits that human motivations are fundamentally the same in public as in private affairs. Every person, whether he acts in the market, in the public administration or in the political arena, has a utility function, which is to maximise profits, benefits or votes. While the actors have identical motives, the institutional differences in incentives and constraints shape different actions.

However paradoxical this may sound, it is those working in the private sector who do real public good because they will be forced out of the market if they do not satisfy the consumers. On their side, politicians cannot be held liable for their promises (incidentally, we hear no more of a second economic miracle), save for the fact that they can be kicked out of office. Bureaucrats are even less accountable to the population in that they have secured jobs - witness the 183 policemen suspended from duty but still drawing their salary.

Can we say that most Mauritians in public life act in the interests of the people, like in Singapore? Actually, many put their personal interests first. These can be financial but also of a non-monetary nature. In effect, public servants and political appointees are obsequious to their masters in order to obtain favours, accumulate privileges or keep their remunerated positions.

Thus, there are too many cases of institutional dysfunctions, governance failures and dilapidation of taxpayers’ money. A High Powered Committee, comprising the Cabinet Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Solicitor General, allowed the Heritage City project to go through all the process, laying out USD 4.3 million on consultancy services, only to be told that the Prime Minister finally put it aside against his will. The board of the Information and Communication Technology Authority, which includes the Secretary for home affairs, shamelessly authorised a payment of fees of Rs 19 million, exorbitant for a few months’ work, to a legal adviser. A newly-qualified lawyer accepted her appointment as an assessor of the Equal Opportunities Commission although she did not have the required five years of experience as a law practitioner, and she took her hefty salary during three months.

Besides creating the appearance of impropriety, government is overwhelmed by malpractices. A senior minister apparently offered a sportsman a job at the Central Electricity Board just through a phone call, bypassing the normal recruitment procedure. More than three weeks after the discovery of the food and mouth disease in Rodrigues on 7 July 2016, consignments of contaminated animals were given the clearance to be exported from the island to Mauritius. One strongly suspects that some private interests are among the causes of the mishandling of this epidemic.

There is worse. Taxpayers were made to believe that the dismantling of the BAI Group, which was above all a political decision, would not cost them a single cent. In fact, the Treasury has disbursed Rs 7 billion so far to “avoid job losses and compensate those concerned.” The worst is yet to come. Not only is the Mauritian government being sued for USD 1 billion for expropriation of the BAI assets, but it might also have to pay USD 100 million of compensation before the Singapore International Arbitration Centre for the unilateral termination of its contract with Betamax.

Make no mistake: no one will be punished for the misuse or loss of public funds. Legitimate questions of transparency, accountability, equal opportunity and efficient management will remain unanswered. As a former First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Mauritius wrote in Mauritius Times, “boards of public bodies or certain of their members, individual bureaucrats vested with high power and politicians keep in their hands a certain amount of overturning ‘discretion’ in decision-making, which is often put to use to the detriment of the public interest.”

The country needs constitutional checks on the discretionary powers of public officials. It should become easy to contest their decisions in court. At the same time, the representatives of the people, being held to account via elections, must have legal powers to control bureaucrats, who are not responsible to voters, with a system of professional sanctions. It is a matter of public interest.