Mauritius: The Oil, the Virus, and the Spyware – A Reckoning?
Opinion
Corruption had been cynically normalized, and princelings roamed with total impunity, dominating our numbed mental horizons. The Augean stables need to be cleansed
Par Jan Arden
« Car la corruption, une fois institutionnalisée, devient une méthode de gouvernance »
— Thomas Mekhaël, professor of ethics at the École de technologie supérieure, Montreal
High-profile politically exposed persons of the ousted regime, who have been queuing up these days at the revitalised Financial Crimes Commission (FCC) in Moka, remain innocent until proven guilty in courts regarding the financial scams, corruption, and other felonies for which they are being investigated or charged. This means investigations have to be conducted diligently and professionally, the results and charges vetted by the ODPP, conditional bail granted where risks of absconding, tampering or interference with witnesses are minimal and defence lawyers granted the latitude they need.
While the legal machinery grinds its way ahead, the glare of investigative and highly mediatised spotlights on the once arrogant princelings of the MSM empire is, however, merciless. The former PM and leader of that party, the Finance Minister, and the Governor of the Bank of Mauritius were not mere underlings in some power play, and the population knows that more senior officials will soon be invited to explain their role in the nexus of corruption and fraud that gravitated around the Empire.
While we have no doubt that the FCC headquarters are fully aware of the variety of cases that were soundly slept on or swept under the carpet for the party prima donnas, it does no harm here to remind ourselves of a few epic affairs that rocked our shores and grabbed some headlines at various times during the past mandate(s). We assume they too will necessitate some diligent enquiry in the coming weeks and months.
Oil contracts
It will be recalled that in 2010, the STC under the Labour Party government signed with Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd, (MRPL) a contract for uninterrupted supply of our annual requirements (about 1.1 MMT) of liquid petroleum products, comprising Jet A1 (ATF) MoGas, GasOil and Furnace Oil for a period of three years at a fixed and pre-determined price, whatever the vagaries of the international market.
For the island’s strategic security, this was a landmark agreement, guaranteed by the Government of India, but after a decade of successfully meeting our needs, the agreement was not renewed in 2019 by the MSM regime. The latter preferred the far riskier route of purchases through brokers and tenders, often under emergency conditions, under the pretext that it would be cheaper, a postulate which had never been demonstrated since then.
Why any government would jettison a stable agreement with India, a traditional ally, while placing our vital strategic supplies at the mercy of unforeseeable events on the high seas for a few pennies of potential savings is open to conjecture. What is certain is that the agents, tenders, and brokers handling our significant needs likely involved hefty commissions and fees, and we need to ascertain that no monkey business occurred at the STC or higher levels.
Covid: Fishy Business
Most of us would not have forgotten the immense challenges to our daily lives that the Covid 19 pandemic caused, from morbidity and mortality at hospital facilities through vaccination and supermarket access sagas and the severe restrictions upon our daily movements. For the most part we played along, learned about virus propagation/prevention and collaborated with official instructions just as the admirable hospital staff ambulance personnel and nurses did, coping as best they could with a deadly unknown from out of some rural market zone inside China.
In this effervescence and amidst the pain and sufferings of the elderly or the co-morbidities of the ailing, emergency procurement procedures became the standard for authorities for everything from surgical and consumer masks to respirators, equipment and pharmaceuticals.Read More… Become a Subscriber
Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 18 April 2025
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