Following the Private Notice Question, which was lively and heated at times, the Leader of the Opposition gave a press conference in the same line as what he has said in the Parliament. For Xavier-Luc Duval, the Budget is riddled with lies and manipulated figures. First, he insisted that the Rs 158 billion given by the Bank of Mauritius to the government in three instalments should be considered as a loan. And in this case, the public sector debt will not be 95% of the GDP, as stated in the budget, but 103%.
The Leader of the Opposition also stated that the unemployment rate indicated in the budget does not reflect reality. Officially, it is 9.2% which implies that there are 52 000 unemployed citizens. However, for Xavier-Luc Duval, the real figure should be 94 000 unemployed. “So the real unemployment rate is 16.5%”, added Xavier-Luc Duval.
The latter also contested the budget deficit of 5.6%. For him, this figure is not correct. “The real figure should be 19.2%. The government is hiding so many things. We have unveiled a few. But many are still hidden”, stated Xavier-Luc Duval.
Because of the massive injection of the Bank of Mauritius and the Minister of Finance not telling the truth, Xavier-Luc Duval said that he fears that Moody will once again downgrade Mauritius. “This would have massive repercussions”, he said.
