Forgive me but I don’t understand how the brains of some of our politicians work. Minister of Health Anil Gayan is called by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) to explain allegations he made. Instead, he hotfoots his way to the police to denounce the EOC president for having opened two cases against him (as if there was a limit to the number of offences one can commit at any one time) and for occupying a position he does not deserve to occupy! And this latter realisation just fell on our dear Gayan’s head in the same way the apple fell on Newton’s – suddenly and unexpectedly.

Rewind: 2014, in a weekly column entitled Only in Mauritius, in our sister publication, l’express, Gayan used to take the moral high ground and self-righteously moralise and pontificate about all the wrongs of our society. And he was generous with allegations, one of which seems to have been one too many. One is tempted to believe that after having so studiously, deridingly and caustically denounced the shenanigans of his predecessors in power, he must have learnt a few tricks from them and perfected the art of extracting the maximum benefit for himself and his kith and kin in his verily own 'plaisir country'! He must also have been completely convinced that, indeed, such abuses and excesses can occur unabashedly, brazenly and with total impunity 'Only in Mauritius'. 

So, we sat and watched the re-appointment of Gayan’s wife at the helm of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute. After all, she had been appointed there in 2001 when he was in power, sacked when the government changed and, in this game of musical chairs, it seems expected that she be re-appointed. (The EOC is apparently thinking of opening a case on that too). Then he appointed a very close ‘friend’ to a position in his own ministry – a post which should have been advertised. When confronted in parliament, he came up with the expression – notorious now and far from the politically correct language he used in his columns only a couple of months before – “government is government and government decides”. And, to rub it in and show complete disregard for us, he had the same lucky lady appointed to the board of the Mauritius Post and Cooperative Bank. So there! When Former Attorney General Yatin Varma took the case to the Independent Commission against Corruption, Gayan’s defiant answer when Weekly asked him for a reaction was another pearl: “Ask Varma to go commit suicide!” From the minister of health!

Today, Gayan has to face the EOC for his ‘close’ friend’s two nominations and for the allegations he made in his ‘inspiring’ articles accusing former Social Security Sheila Bappoo of having favoured her constituents by giving them exclusive access to a facility for senior citizens – an accusation which he followed by sarcastically challenging the EOC to open an enquiry instead of solving “all problems which are or will be brought to its attention” by “the drafting of an elaborate Communiqué”. Except that Gayan is no ordinary, humble citizen and he therefore has no reason to go and defend his name. Leave transparency and accountability for the next round of moralising.

Gayan should perhaps have continued writing – and compiled another very useful book – because we had started believing in his talk and in the perfect world he promised us. No inequality, no nepotism, no favouritism, no injustice, no opacity. A perfect world, you know. A Gayan world. But then he went and got elected and something went badly wrong. As it always does!