Close to 30% of our cash flow, at risk

The new administration is now internationally recognized, and the financial sponsors show that they are available.
While remaining true to their own principles, they speak, with one single voice, within the arena in which they compete.
However, one cannot help but notice the Malagasy government’s relative indifference toward the Indo-Pakistani immigrants, a potential local investment group.
So far, there has been no follow up to the largely symbolic gesture of goodwill extended to this group of investors, by a few government officials who have called for their close collaboration.
Instead of openly associating them with the economic recovery effort, the administration continues to keep them out of the loop of the decision making process.
They would rather beg from the Mauritian investors who only represent 30,000 jobs, and whose $11 million financial assistance comes with quite a few strings attached; it essentially forces us to spend it on Mauritian-made imported goods, thereby further increasing our dependence on foreign assistance.

For a few Indo-Pakistani immigrants, their meetings with government officials, and the highest ranking religious leaders in Madagascar, left them with an impression of scorn, warning, and demands.
Obviously, they would be considered as Madagascar’s “Jews”, or as riffraffs.
They were essentially told to watch their step, and to keep out of the Malagasy’s sandboxes.
This confirms the prevailing discrimination which this community has long endured.
There was no room for the Indo-Pakistani immigrants among the delegation dispatched to the meeting of the “Friends of Madagascar”.
Yet, they control 25 to 30% of the cash flow within the Malagasy economic network.
They are full members of Malagasy professional associations, the Chamber of Commerce, and other business associations.
They are involved in building construction, hotel, and restaurant industries, and shipping transport, and are indispensable within many isolated regions, because, in spite of everything, they are the only professional businessmen around.
Representing a mere .0013% of the Malagasy population (20,000 vs. 15 million), they are most definitely a minority.
Nonetheless, they own 65% of the Madagascar’s legitimate business enterprises.

A seriously heated debate

The victims of numerous acts of vandalism, the Indo-Pakistani immigrants have been forced to congregate in the capital city where they are even more exposed to unfavorable opinion, considered as “filthy rich exploiters”, born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
Isn’t it time to finally take up their case?

It appears that this community suffers from a form of public opinion tyranny which can be manipulated at will.
A black cloud hangs over this group of immigrants which the late President Tsiranana has seen fit to qualify as “Madagascar’s nineteenth tribe”.
The first Indo-Pakistanis arrived on the island in the 1870’s.
Although the colonial era has forced them to either settle here for good, or leave, these Indo-Pakistani immigrants have been denied any citizenship privilege.
This denial has been consistently maintained, even up to now, into the twenty-first century, an era when globalization is the rule, not the exception, and when there is a persistent call for bringing a lasting development to the country.
The duty-free zones have proven to be lacking, and inadequate.
The jobs, and the wealth they produce are volatile, at best.
Socially, they are far from being the panacea they were taunted to be, and they create an economic division which is dangerous, and is not conducive to social harmony.

To systematically, legally, and openly grant Malagasy citizenship to these resident aliens will go a long way toward initially winning their trust.
When the country assimilates them in this manner, we acquire another source of lasting investment power, without having to worry about not getting our money back.
This is something which the duty-free enterprises, by their very nature, are not able to accomplish.
Naturalizing the Indo-Pakistani immigrants will require a real attitude adjustment, on their part, as well as on the Malagasy’s.
Without this, the rapid and lasting development of many regions will surely fail.
The country, and the economy may always put these Indo-Pakistani businesses at risk.
There have been instances, as was the case in 1987, when Indo-Pakistani businessmen have been thrown out of the areas where they decided to settle, to the great satisfaction of a few citizens with rather questionable motives; this happened, partly, because of the relative indifference of the so-called human, and minority rights advocates.

Translated by J. F. Razanamiadana