An Assessment of the Use of Information Technology Tools and E-business by Informal Sector Entrepreneurs in Mauritius

Abstract

Globalization has long become a buzz word. Whereas globalization pundits and skeptics are both still fighting about the pro and cons of the global capitalist movement and struggle for power between rich and poor nations, colonized and post colonized nations, north and south, development has the tendency to forget that Internet and other e-knowledge enhancers are accelerating the process. Governments in once-poor neo colonized states in Africa and the world are now looking to the new E-economy as the solution to their poverty and other social problems. Access to the Internet can provide work for the poor, although knowledge pundits judge it to be the new form of slavery of the rich over the poor. Mauritius is no exception to the rule. Rapid international socio -conomic conditions and unemployment have accelerated the growth of the informal sector n Mauritius. Many unemployed people, chiefly from the manufacturing sector, have lost their employment and have now entered the informal sector, primarily as street vendors and household producers. Some have returned to agrarian works. However, a sector still lags behind in the use of internet and other E-tools: the informal sector. The informal sector represents a large share of business in African and other poor nations. Although if is difficult to express in exact figures the share of business dealings in the informal sector, mainly because of the lack of statistics and concrete definition, many barriers still exist in the informal sector that provoke business entrepreneurs to opt for informality. Barriers such as high taxes and neglect by relevant authorities tend to accentuate this informality dilemma. This research paper will demonstrate how people in the informal sector in Mauritius refuse to use internet and other tools in their daily business dealings.