Kolo Government: a much too inaccurate policy and few evidences of capitalization

As a matter of fact, President Rajaonarimampianina and Prime Minister are tackling but the capitalization of the World Bank’s program for Madagascar. There is no need to feel offended in any way, since the Bretton Woods born institution will invest some US$ 1.5 billions into the improvement of social standards as well as to the country’s economic situation. Was that a concession from a ruling power stuck between a rock and a hard place or a genuine political will?
The State’s General Policy rotates around four axes at a time:
Democratic governance and rule of law
general economic growth, employment, territorial development, access to basic healthcare services and enhancement of human resources
protection of nature
The Prime Minister expressively required an ethical line of conduct as much as efficiency from his ministers in their bid of achievement quantifiable through strict indexes. “You are about to make from point A for point B. Do forget the skateboard and the bike and look towards a jumbo jet!” summoned Roger Kolo with a taint of humor. Yet, the point B remains unknown to local citizens. And foreign financial backers have no better insight in this matter, since the unfinished State’s General Policy happens to lack the late Madagascar Action Plan’s main asset: accuracy.
The Prime Minister introduced the good governance pattern as it is defined into the World Bank’s program for the development of Madagascar, namely a pattern based over unbiased judicial system and administration bodies, a balance of powers and over the decentralization of available resources. He particularly emphasized the paramount need to restore security for goods and persons, in reference to the rampaging hold ups in town, and to the resumption of onslaughts from “Dahalo” outlaws opposing armed marauding bands of cattle thefts and local residents supported by police forces the best they can.
Local populations are called upon bringing their own contribution to growth targeting efforts for their own sake. In order to boost the recovery and growth processes, the ruling power intends to support producing sectors substantially more than they happen to be, and do what it takes to enhance rural producers’ benefits. The State’s General Policy enumerates solutions like the construction of facilities, modernization, reviewed mining operations’ legal terms, the refreshment of tourism or the search for new international trade routes.
Social measures
In the run of the presentation of the State’s General Policy to the National Assembly, the Prime Minister obviously addressed the government’s main measures expected to drive the national economy’s recovery up. These measures are, against every expectation, not of economic nature. Three major Accounts will be created. The first one will be devoted to emergency and human relief. The next one, to solidarity; and the third and last one, to insertion. The government pledges the materialization of decentralization: “We have only ourselves to blame, and have to get a move on”. The Prime Minister advocates “close intertwinement and mutual assistance to come true between ministerial departments.”
The President was the one to address large scale construction works for facilities as a central gravity point to economic recovery. As for the Prime Minister, he pledged efforts to draw remote settlements from the isolation of the outback, and to put an end to electrical power cuts which have been taking a growing toll from scores of companies. “This problem has to be settled. We are in for it, do believe me” he insisted.
Still, the measures announced by Kolo Roger remain far from pledging any real success in meeting any achievement. The government will have to provide with many more detailed programs and actions together with strict indexes, in short, with much more accuracy. The speech served to the Parliament’s deputies will never be bought as so easily by foreign financial backers, not even by an European Union on the verge of unlocking an 11th FED program for Madagascar. The scarce figures put by the State’s General Policy forth, namely the reduction of the poverty rate by 7 to 10 points though a plus 25% of the PIB high boost of the investment rate and through the creation of some 500 000 new jobs, cannot be held as realistic right away, even if growth rates ever reach 100% in the year 2015.
During the first encounter between the Parliament and the ruling power’s Cabinet Ministers, deputies are allowed to put suggests and alterations of the State’s General Policy forward. The National Assembly’s deputies can support the government’s choices through a vote of confidence, just as much as they can compel the Prime Minister to produce a more satisfying draft, or at worst, reshuffle his own Cabinet as a whole. The Prime Minister has already experienced how urgently the Parliament’s stressed him to address issues related to the struggle against poverty, precious wood smuggles and crumbling security standards in the island’ southern regions. It does not rain blames and dogs upon his head, at the least. He may relay on the presidential majority and its recently claimed upper hand at the Lower Chamber to make sure that it does not come to that… yet.