The other is the energy minister who declared that electricity prices will not be reduced while he is in charge of the ministry. Having competitive electricity prices is way more important for our national well-being than keeping a minister – who also wants effectively to sell the clouds of Mauritius to the private sector – in Cabinet for so long. Something recall elections would make a lot more obvious.
Collendavelloo has not supplied the information requested in Parliament essentially hiding behind data protection. But there is a huge space between data privacy and equal opportunity that we can milk. For example there is no issue of privacy to know from which ridings the recent waves of recruits at the CEB and the CWA come from and in which proportions. Does too large a number come from riding no. 19? Besides technology has made it a lot easier to determine on a map the size of the circles from which the new employees of these two utilities were selected.
Naturally nothing prevents the Equal Opportunities Commission to have a look at all the data, albeit in-camera, including the full addresses of these recruits to determine the types and severity of any biases. Computing the likelihood of such a recruitment could be quite interesting. Ironically the minister should be all for such an exercise given what he said when the electoral manifesto of Alliance Lepep – the pledge is on page 43 – was presented back in November 2014: « Le Freedom of Information Act pu bizin permet, su kondision byin sir, la posibilite a ban sitwayin de resevwar de informasion lor tu size ki interes li. »
A lot of voters are interested.