The Angus Road Saga

Editorial

Lying parallel to the Vacoas-St Paul Road from which it is separated by an area of bare land that has been there forever – so it seems – Angus Road is an unassuming and normally quiet thoroughfare, a silence especially noticeable during languid afternoons. For a good long time its claim to fame has been the presence of the residence of the Indian High Commissioner, and an equally hardly noticeable narrow side road glorified, though, by the name ‘Rue des Nations Unies’.

Of late however it has gained in notoriety because of what could be called the unfurling Angus Road saga, the firing shot having been launched by the leader of the Reform Party Roshi Bhadain concerning property bought in the name of the daughters of by Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth and allegedly paid for by an intermediary in London having at one time some business connection with the Mauritius Duty Free Paradise. As the story was unfolding, out also came details with pictures of receipts representing part payments that were issued for the buying of the present property from Bel Ombre Sugar Estate. These receipts showed amounts varying between Rs 500,000 to one million, sums which are in excess of that permissible by law for cash payments. It is not known at this stage however whether the payments had been done by bank transfers or otherwise, which is a different thing altogether.

If some of the facts being uncovered are correct, they indicate here an important point, namely the functioning of our institutions. If they follow their own standards, then no one would be able to go through the net as it were. Any clear-headed citizen would look upon this as the robustness and integrity of a country’s institution treating everyone equally to protect the country from illegal deals. From there one can also argue that such robustness would also be a protection even for the Prime Minister or any other public personality in a position of responsibility. Which therefore they should be the first to welcome, for their own sake and that of the country and the country’s image where investors are concerned.

However, on this score, the record of ICAC leaves much to be desired. Its inexplicable turnaround in the MedPoint case has thrown doubt on the institution itself, as much as the list of affairs where it is yet to be known where its inquiries stand, such as the Dufry scandal (2015); the Alvaro Sobrinho scandal (2018); the Sugar Insurance Fund Board’s highly excessive overpayment of land v/s valuation scandal (2018); the Choomka affair (2017); the Yerrigadoo/Bet 365 scandal (2018), etc.

The actual list is too long to compile. But all these pending inquiries highlight the absence of a credible and respected investigative agency capable of handling white collar crime (financial scams and frauds, massive and complex corruption cases, money-laundering of the proceeds of drug, gambling or other illicit money sources…) independently of political proximity. We need not document here the perversion of Public Procurement procedures through various means well known it seems by marauding top echelons in major purchasing ministries as the most recent CEB corruption scandal points to.

There is another dimension here which we must take as seriously. The public looks up to the media for doing its job of protecting public interest by doing investigative journalism and bringing to light matters which reek of corruption, fraud or scandal that put into question the integrity of institutions and of that of those who are elected to govern the country. They must be as above board as they exhort others to be, and if not, they must also be subject to scrutiny within the established legal framework of the country.

For all the public interest journalism that the media is supposed to foster, it is not expected to substitute itself as some form of popular tribunal. The point here is that there must be no suggestion of trial by the press, whether any matter concerns an ‘ordinary’ layman or a high-profile individual, and the more so when it concerns political figures. The Prime Minister has announced that he would be presently collecting evidence in relation to the purchase of the Angus Road property to clear his good name. This will hopefully be done at the earliest, and in that connection we presume that the platform he will have recourse to do that will be our courts of law.

This is as and how it should be – certainly not the platform being made available to politicians of different hues (for self-promotion or to run down their adversaries) down the years since some decades now by some of our socio-cultural organizations. One wonders when such abusive practice will stop.

* Published in print edition on 17 November 2020