Ours is a weird Republic, unique in its strangeness, made up of schizophrenia and double standards, one for «us» and one for «them», in business, in society, in politics ?

As «Republicans» we pride ourselves on our «Royal» Road, «Royal» College, «Royal» Botanical Gardens, «Queen Elizabeth» College «Princess Margaret» Hospital, «Prince of Wales» Street, «Queen Victoria» Avenue ? not to mention our «Queen?s Counsels», assorted «Knights» and «Officers of the British Empire.»

Our Republic is generally in two minds on any given issue: one part wants Paul Bérenger as Prime Minister while another part, the bigger one it seems, lives in fear of his impending premiership.

The Governor of the Bank of Mauritius (BoM) recently dreamed that he was giving an interview to l?express and he woke up. Behold, he was indeed talking to Stéphane Saminaden and had gone on record as the most bombastic English speaker this side of Oxbridge, unveiling in the process his delusions of literary accomplishments. The Republic is still divided on whether we have a somnambulist or an entertainer at the head of the BoM.

The image of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is meant to convey, in its crusade against graft and money laundering, grim resoluteness, solemnity and awe of the law, softened by discretion and accessibility. Yet the recent public campaign it launched to advertise its mission has trivialised both its image and its activities. It now has to rescue its reputation from the jaws of a vulgar populism and aspire to new heights, where public opinion can look up to it. Wretched schizophrenia!

<B>The Gravy Train goes on </B>

The top managers of the Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB), who presided over the biggest plunder of funds in our history, are treated by one section of the press as incompetent executives who have bungled and messed up their careers and, by another section, as latter day victims who have done no wrong.

Had not Moody?s Investors? Service downgraded the MCB?s rating and served notice, in no uncertain terms, that a further downgrading was in the pipeline, no action would have been taken. Following Moody?s strictures, the Board hurriedly placed the General Manager and his Deputy on hold («temporary leave»), cobbled together an odd troika as caretaker, retained in their respective positions the Chairman, the Secretary and the Audit Committee Chairman, who had all abysmally failed to protect the interest of shareholders, while publicly renewing its trust in the impugned executives and predicting their return before long.

When that happens what willhave changed? Nothing, except that MCB?s shareholders will have been poorer by Rs 881.6 millions, our financial establishment will have been covered in ridicule, and the gravy train will have resumed its course in full throttle.

<B>Not Yielded an Inch</B>

In utter defiance of public opinion, the authorities concerned and elementary business ethics, the old administration thus carries on unchallenged at the MCB. We should not be fooled by the Press Communiqué advising that ACCENTURE has been called in to review the Bank?s operations and procedures. ACCENTURE is reported to be DCDM?s foreign collaborators and DCDM could have solicited its ACCENTURE colleagues a long time back to redress the appalling management of MCB ? if it had done its job properly, a job for which it was paid a king?s ransom.

The MCB has therefore not yielded an inch to the arguments of business leaders, the Bank of Mauritius, the Stock Exchange, the Financial Services Commission (FSC). It operates in a time warp, remote from our age, has its own rules, sets its own impenetrable objectives and behaves like a world unto itself.

The MCB saga has left all of us with egg on our faces. The country and its financial institutions have been humbled. How can the Bank of Mauritius, the Stock Exchange Commission, and the Financial Services Commission condone this papering over the cracks and allow the MCB to get away with its Byzantine administration, its occult policies and methods, its multiple glass ceilings and self-serving, minimalist window-dressing?

In our entire history of double standards, the practitioners at the MCB take the cake. For much smaller lapses or mistakes of judgement employees have been sacked without compunction or hesitation. Take the recent case of the Prisons Department, under fire for lack of proper control and supervision. It is admittedly a different type of institution but involves the same ethical principle. The reaction of its beleaguered managers is identical to that of the MCB top brass. As bannered in l?express of 22nd July, it reads: «Accusée de graves manquements, la direction des prisons se dit ?victime?». To be consistent, the Commissioner of Prisons should be exonerated, placed on «temporary leave» ? and reinstated eventually.

<B>All the honourable virtues except resignation</B>

In the annals of financial institutions worldwide, the MCB is probably the only instance on record in which the top executives of a bank deny responsibility for massive embezzlement within their four walls. Instead, they identify a convenient scapegoat, crucify him at a Special General Assembly and hang on to their jobs without flinching: obviously, they have all the honourable virtues, except resignation.

The «temporary leave» of the General Manager and his Deputy should thus be regarded as nothing more than a tactical move to fend off further damage to the bank and buy time. It is not meant as a decision in principle to reassure shareholders, the public and employees that the highest standards of good governance will henceforth prevail at the MCB, whose rhetoric is intended just as a smoke screen. The Chairman of the Committee on Good Governance, whose own company was in the eye of the storm over the Air Mauritius scandal, in a press interview, while referring to the MCB scam, pointedly stated that individual interest should yield to that of the institution. Was anyone taking note?

<B>The Options are clear</B>

The world of finance is a ruthless world. It is not a world for the feeble-minded, the timorous or those who fail. See how those who default on their promises are dealt with by banks ? and logically and understandably so, for otherwise there would be no order, discipline, consistency, or rectitude. But this is Mauritius, remember? Our double standards rule. But to the outside world all this sentimentality for the Nos. 1 and 2 of the MCB is unseemly, if not aberrant.

At the risk of making of our republic the laughing stock of the international business community, the MCB continues to live in cuckooland. It really believes that its institutional shareholders, Lloyds, Moody?s, not to mention thousands of small savers, whose funds have been misappropriated, will let it get away with this cosmetic exercise which leaves the disgraced old guard intact.

The FSC and the Stock Exchange of Mauritius should act to disabuse the MCB Board, the BoM having come unstuck in this crisis. If they don?t, it means we have lost all pretence to good governance and financial credibility. Worse, we continue to bow before an anachronistic oligarchy and allow it a free hand to destroy the image and reputation of our country. The options have never been clearer. Our weird Republic wavers on the brink?

By Mohamad Vayid