‘Vicks-Vaporub’ treatment for the Economy

Kasimbe’s biggest regret in life is that he didn’t agree to amputate his thumb a year ago, after what looked like an insect bite worsened to develop gangrene. The year long ‘Vicks-Vaporub - Balm’ treatment he took was to no avail. Gangrene formed and he opted, against Dr. Balakrishnan’s advice, not to do away with his thumb for the thought of having to live, for the rest of his life, without a thumb, was too painful to him. Now, a year later, he is leaving to Trivandrum to amputate his entire left arm in a desperate attempt to save his life.

Kasimbe isn’t alone in delaying painful decisions. That’s what we did as a country, under Gayoom, for 30 long years. We procrastinated, delayed any decision that looked painful. We knew our problems - we did not pay the real cost of our electricity, health care, fuel, and water etc; almost one in every five adult is a civil servant; five out every hundred Rufiyaa we earn goes to support our military. With no direct taxation the budget revenues were inadequate to finance the uncontrollable government expenses. We were living beyond our means. Every time we had a shortfall, we borrowed our way out of it without ever attempting to find a permanent cure to the problem. Our policy makers knew very well that this sort of ad-hoc and piecemeal policies only gave symptomatic treatment that provided a momentary relief from pain, rather than addressing the real problems. Addressing the real problems and bringing the much-needed structural changes to the economy were simply delayed because the people at the helm of our affairs found the changes to be too painful. So, we continued to treat our economy with ‘Vicks-Vaporub’, for a good 30 years and the result is…nothing but gangrene.

It’s been over a month since we closed Gayoom’s chapter. And now it looks like the looming dollar crisis is going to be the first real challenge to our new Government. I can understand why President Nasheed’s government wouldn’t want to face the inevitable devaluation, at least during his all important first 100 days in office but if we are counting on the USD100 million loan pledged by the Indian Government to save our Rufiyaa, that’s tantamount to applying ‘Vicks-Vaporub’ on Rufiyaa. The real ailment remains untreated – only to recur in another month or two.