Port Louis — 10 billion rupees! Wasted, swindled, swallowed, scooped up or worse. We read the newspaper headlines, some of us spent the week end scrutinizing the Report of the Director of Audit, then we went about our own business. We even had a good night's sleep. Why worry?

Year in and year out, it is the same folklore: the Audit Report comes out at the same time with more or less the same verdict. Why we even bother to have one carried out is still a mystery. It is like someone going for a diagnosis fully aware of the disease and of the fact that there is no cure. Not now. Not in the foreseeable future. Not ever.

I can't even be cynical to the point of thinking that the point of the Audit Report is merely to create frustration and test the limits of the pep admirab. We have reached a point of apathy where we don't even bother to get angry. How can we get angry at our own compatriots getting privileges that we will never have? For snatching contracts we are welcome to bid for knowing our bids will never get through the tender boards? For spending money we have worked hard for on unnecessary business trips and preposterous per diems? Oh please, isn't it better to just smile and wish them a safe journey as they head for the business class on a ticket paid for by you and you turn left to go and squeeze into economy on a ticket again paid for by you?

But of course, we have to have an Audit Report carried out because it is the law. Some laws we have to abide by. It is the law to tell the patient what the diagnosis is. It is the law to tell them what the causes of the disease they suffer from are. But, perish the thought, you cannot have a law to eliminate these causes. Who would want that? Who could risk it?

The folklore continues: a bit of noise from the press. That's what we are paid for. A bit of grunting from the opposition (not too much as they are guilty of the same sins) because they have to be seen to be standing up for us. A few suggestions here and there which everybody knows are made just for the gallery and everyone plays on, knowing that we are gullible enough to keep hoping and that our memories are short enough to have forgotten what happened to the last Audit Report.

The folklore has been enriched this year: replying to the leader of the opposition's criticism, the minister of Finance reminded Paul Bérenger of the suggestion the former had made in 2001 to introduce (please don't laugh) the Fiscal Responsibility Act. In case the reader is not familiar with this act, a similar bill in the US passed in the House of Representatives aimed, in a nutshell, to cut the pay of members of Congress every year they run a budget deficit. You understand why Paul Bérenger asked for time to adjust to his role as Finance minister before he introduced it. You also have an idea of why he never adjusted and why no one has since breathed a word about it. You understand why we are now talking about a "monitoring unit" instead. If I said something about the implications of this "monitoring unit", you would peg me as being an unredeemable cynic and accuse me of refusing to pay for more trips and privileges for my compatriots. So, my lips are sealed.