hear about it yet when he was here two weeks ago. he gave us very good marks for many things which we have been doing here for donkey ’ s years. our tropical cyclone alert system, like our extensive social welfare system, and the provision of free education and health - care could serve as a model for the us, he opined. my absence at his lectures has been the subject of some negative comment in the local press – especially when mr stiglitz apparently had a go at central bank governors who were applying the wrong traditional remedies to counter the current inflationary surge. i did receive an invitation to attend, but it was an unusual sort of invitation as it came with a hefty bill! mr stiglitz thought we had a miracle here in mauritius. those of us, who have been working here for the last 30 to 40 years, know that there is no such thing as a miracle. it is all the result of patient, slow, hard work. the only miracle in my book is how the organisers managed to get many ceo ’ s to pay rs23, 000 ( us $ 825, approximately ) to come and listen to mr stiglitz when you could get most of what he said for free on the internet or from his books. ombudsperson for banks greater competition in the banking sector, enhanced transparency, and giving the consumer a fair deal are so many yardsticks for the regulator to gauge banking sector performance over and above banking sector profitability. a major weakness is our failure to establish the office of the ombudsperson for banks, which is provided for in the law. this office can bis central bankers ’ speeches provide a useful service for citizens to turn to if they have been subjected to unfair treatment and abusive practices in lieu of, or before, the more expensive and time - consuming recourse to the courts. the establishment of the office has become embroiled in the grey area between the financial services commission, the bank of mauritius and the office of the commissioner for the protection of borrowers, set up subsequently. both the fsc and bom have got core functions, each in its particular area, but i have taken the view that, for a small country like ours, there should be only one ombudsman for all financial services, instead of having one ombudsman for the financial services and for the institutions supervised by the fsc and another for the banking sector. the minister of finance actually announced

regional integration in this world of globalised finance, the perspective of the regulator can hardly be circumscribed by national frontiers. as mauritian enterprises turn increasingly to the region and beyond, it is only natural that our banks accompany their customers overseas. we are encouraging many of our banks to go regional. but we also call for a dose of realism : countries in the region are not mauritius writ large. they have their own specificities which must be taken into account. whether you want to locate an enterprise in madagascar or bangladesh, or run a bank in tanzania or india, there is a tremendous adjustment to be made. the regulator can facilitate this adjustment by having a framework for cooperation in place. instead of trying to address the issues that are likely to arise on a bilateral country - tocountry basis, it is preferable to address them at the regional level. this is the objective which we are pursuing in such fora as comesa and sadc. at the level of sadc, we have bis central bankers ’ speeches come up with a sadc draft central bank model law, which seeks to harmonise our approach to central banking to develop a fairly uniform framework for the region. within comesa, we have set up a regional clearing house, with a regional payment and settlements system so that our economic operators, exporters and importers, do not face a multiplicity of regimes and settlements systems when trying to tap regional trade opportunities. the bank of mauritius is the regional payment and settlement agent for the whole of comesa for this operation. we are finalizing the operational details and should open for business quite soon. on the regional front therefore, we are playing a very active role as the banking sector regulator to ensure that most of the difficulties that one can normally expect to encounter in going regional – at least, those within our area of competence – are gradually ironed out. we are also engaged in a vast programme of monetary, financial, and macroeconomic convergence, with the distant objective of a single currency, at the pan - african level with the association of african central banks where comesa and sadc are just two of the building blocs. the current problems in the eurozone periphery have admittedly thrown some cold water on our prospects of moving in that direction although the plans are to move there by 2018 – 2020 or thereabouts. before we can seriously envisage that, we have to ensure that the necessary conditions are in place. hence, the programme