Dave Kissoondoyal Restricted Web Page

Fax Message  

Dear Honourable Deputy Prime Minister,

Further to my fax dated the 2^nd January 2001, where I expressed my willingness to bring to your office my contribution towards implementing the project of the Cyber City, I would like to bring the following observations:

The problems that Bowman Cyber City Ltd (BCCL), Rogers Call Centre (RCC) and International Call Centre (ICC) are facing right now are of deep concern. For the success of any business the market plays an important role and it is the pillar for its existence. These companies have been striving to get overseas clients to use their Call Centre infrastructure. I personally doubt the existence of these companies in the future because you cannot sell a product where there is no market for it. The Government is promoting the concept of Call Centre and its opinion of New Economy is based on the same. The Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunications has announced the establishment of a Call Centre at Goodlands where four hundred jobs will be created instantly. By setting up the necessary infrastructure does not mean that the goals of the Government will be easily achieved. I doubt that the target of the creation of 20,000 jobs in the few years to come will be easily achieved.

In my fax I mentioned that Latin American countries have been using the new technology to boost up their economy. In my recent travel to Costa Rica made me realised how they achieved the same.

In fact Costa Rica has basically the same problems as concerns technology. Racsa is the Telecommunications Provider having the monopoly in the country the same way as Mauritius Telecom has in Mauritius. However the incentives provided by the Costa Rican Government have made many major companies like CISCO, COMPAQ have their headquarters established there.

There is no betting tax in Costa Rica and it is now competing with all the Caribbean islands in terms of attracting sports book companies. Major companies like sporting bet USA have been established there and they provide a Labour force of more than 500 employees in their call centre.

My proposals are simple as that:

Abolition of betting tax for telephone and Internet based betting. This will encourage foreign investors come to Mauritius and take advantage of the same. Mauritius will be cited one of the main competitor for the Caribbean islands. Many international Sports bookies will be set up here and lots of job will be created. This will be a very popular decision of the Government as this will bring job creation

 I have read in today’s newspaper L’express that the CyberCity of Ebene will have an investment of Rs1.8 billion. After careful reading of the article, I noticed that the Cyber City will be set up first and then Mr Manraj will travel to Europe to find potential customers. I doubt that his manoeuvre will have the same results as the above-mentioned companies have. We have to accept the reality that the only “atout” that we have is only our cheap Labour force, except that we are not competitive in any aspect. Our telecommunication charges are as high or even higher than the European Countries. Internet Connectivity is not only expensive but not to the quality as compared to the other nations which have high bandwidth to the Internet backbone.

The second observation I found is that the Government is going to recruit Analyst Programmers from a list provided by the Indian Government. What will happen to the local people. Does this mean that when the Government mentioned that 20,000 jobs will be created , most of which will be foreigners. How will this combat the acute problem of unemployment?

Honourable Sir, I hope you will consider my proposals.

Yours sincerely

Dave Kissoondoyal, AIMgt –UK