The Call for Swift Justice and Financial Accountability: Restoring Integrity in Governance

Opinion

By Jan Arden

There is little room for doubt that the two key leaders of the Alliance for Change are committed to proceed with due legal process but that any perpetrators of fraud and scams would be brought to account. A testimony that times have changed despite the quasi-overload of unearthed scandals that each and every week seems to bring to the surface. These add to a lot of enquiries that were left to sleep for years! While necessary, this makes an angry popular opinion increasingly impatient that those who defrauded public funds to the tune of billions not be treated with gloves.

The demand for a faster-paced investigative action while respecting basic rights can be seen through different prisms: making sure dossiers are well-tied up or respecting due process and DPP advice and guidance to the CCID and the Mauritius Police Force in general. The question has been raised as to whether the latter, even with the collaboration of the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Crimes Commission, possesses the necessary resources and expertise to investigate more complex financial scams. Dozens of dossiers had already accumulated in filing cabinets, with new ones — suspected for some time — only now being uncovered. To restore public confidence, these concerns must be addressed without delay.

The population cannot be made to wait years for justice to be seen in action, particularly when suspects and known scammers, are strolling away on overseas holidays, enjoying their coffee and croissants in Dubai or brought to CCID offices at a respectful gubernatorial pace accompanied by their lawyers. The impression of a two-speed system, one for the common man and another for white-collar crime, has to be fought back. We trust the new CP will consider roping in therefore, on contract, if necessary, the financial trail specialists, the experienced auditors, the in-house legal acumen and even external agents to hit the ground running in 2025. Aside from the financial and banking scams at BoM and MIC, there are numerous other low-hanging fruits waiting to be picked — from the Angus Road and St Louis sagas, through the ghastly Covid-19 Emergency Procurement scandal, to outright alleged financial misdemeanours at some parastatals like the CWA.

A culture of arrogant impunity and oppressiveness has plagued our governance over the past ten years, and it has to be erased. Nobody else should ever think he or she is above the law. Ministers and their minions are on thin ice if they treat us as mentally retarded citizens. For those and a number of other reasons then, the population demands and expects non-expeditive but vigorous and exemplary justice.

Many even feel that all Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), Ministers and political appointees at key institutions should have an Objection to Departure (OTD) filed at the airport until preliminary enquiries clear them of any obvious misdeeds. But government should avoid any witch-hunt feeling of yesteryears when opponents were hounded, harassed and arrested for flimsy reasons. Then again, Ministers should be free to concentrate on sound planning and running of their departments. They should not be spending more time than necessary on scams and frauds. Once unearthed, some have argued that the monitoring and reporting of all such cases could be delegated or outsourced to a politically independent informal apex investigative mechanism including for instance, the CP, the FCC (pending its restructuration), the FSC and any other ad-hoc member. This approach could ensure effective collaboration, minimize turf wars, and facilitate the prioritization of cases, ensuring that none of significant importance are overlooked.

It is undeniable that the alleged financial crimes highlighted by the ongoing interrogations of BoM Governor Harvesh Seegoolam and the anticipated questioning of MIC CEO Jitendra Bissessur — along with others likely to follow — reveal serious irregularities in the opaque allocation of printed money during the pandemic, amounting to billions. These funds were reportedly funnelled to a motley collection of beneficiaries, including well-connected friends, cronies, and family members. This investigation serves as a litmus test for uncovering high-level corruption and kickback schemes that have, until now, operated with impunity. Some big players, we hear, did not even need the monies except for securing cheap interest rates to repay higher-rate commercial loans! The Ambre Hotel deal and the ghastly saga of Silver Bank are even more suspect. What controls were in place if any, what high-level protections were offered and who were the beneficiaries of defrauded public funds are all questions of immediate interest to the population.

Opacity, omerta and corruption go hand in glove and both “Missie Moustass” and our humble selves must be jointly commended for bringing a totally corrupt and oppressive regime to a brutal end with the hope that reforms be undertaken so such a derelict state of affairs never be allowed to happen again.

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Limiting the freebie culture

In the midst of a tumultuous final year, following a lackluster budget, the MSM and its allies, already on the back foot and acutely aware of the true state of the economy, recklessly embarked on a cascade of irresponsible campaign promises and pledges. It is true that the grounds were slipping fast, and the electoral insecurity was growing behind the public facades, but with the benefit of detailed analyses, it is clear that those electoral promises were the summum of irresponsibility forcing the then Opposition to follow suit. Our island did not have, and still does not have, the resources for a responsible political contest while resorting to a full-fledged race for ‘freebies’.

The recent political frays in various regional Indian states have turned elections into a mockery with a culture of promised freebies which, once elected, the governing party, hard pressed by budgetary constraints, can turn into a shrill war of words with the central government about more subsidies. Upcoming State elections in the Union Territory of Delhi is a case in point, where both the BJP, the Congress and the AAP are turning their «freebie» guns to various sections of the electorate, in particular, female voters with promises of INR 2,000 or 2,500 monthly, irrespective of income or the Union Territory capacity to fund such largesses.

While we cannot deny that some small section of the electorate actually needs such an allowance, their cumulative effect (free transport, free electricity, free water…) can obliterate real discussions about the state’s development and severely constrain budgets for other sectors (say environment). A profoundly unhealthy situation with a reckless political class. Drawing the line between legitimate campaign promises for the country’s development and the ‘freebie’ culture may not be easy, but the legacy judgment laid down by the Privy Council cannot be allowed to stand. We trust our legal community will address the matter in the medium term. A Fiscal Responsibility Act with real enforcement is needed to prevent outright abuses of freebies as an electoral ploy or gimmick.

On a separate but parallel front, there is no excuse whatsoever for cooking up basic economy, trade and employment statistics and that should be treated as a serious offence. Similarly, no government should be allowed the latitude to pay for its and our current lifestyle at the expense of future generations. We must return to a more robust and resilient state with a progressive lowering of public debt relative to GDP and an accent on export industries to reduce our annual deficits and diversify our economy. There is little doubt that the new era of competencies and goodwill surrounding the PMO, the Ministry of Finance and the economic think-tanks will be hard at work on these issues.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 10 January 2025