The country is bleeding. It is not the opposition saying this. It is not the impertinent journalists either. It is none other than the former minister of finance, Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo.

Rs7 billion! That is what the handling of the British American (BAI) Saga has cost us so far! Lutchmeenaraidoo stated in parliament on Thursday that the measures taken to “avoid job losses and compensate those concerned have resulted in an increase of Rs7 billion in public debt”!

I have a vague recollection – and so must you – of a very ‘honourable’ minister telling us, between two very costly and useless trips, that the BAI would not cost the taxpayer a single cent. And who doesn’t remember that none of the Super Cash Back Gold policyholders would lose one single cent and no employee would lose their job.

When we asked how a company they accused of operating a Ponzi scheme would be obliterated without a single job being lost, a single investors’ cent being wasted and without injecting one penny of public funds, the same minister – with the 24-hour personal security detail – repeated ad nauseam, “Parole donnée, parole sacrée”! Today we find out that Rs7 billion have been syphoned from our pockets and we still cannot see the end of the mess created.

In the meantime, there seems to have been a change of tack and all sorts of delaying tactics are being used to avoid paying the policyholders. First, the foreigners would not be paid back. Their money is lost and that’s it. Next please! Then, those who invested more than Rs500,000 had to have clearance from the Mauritius Revenue Authority. When they did, they were asked to wait for the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to decide whether their money is clean or not. While the chairman of the FIU – Kailash Trilochun – must be too busy counting all the millions of rupees he has been receiving from all the different public bodies and adding that to his exorbitant fees for each case the government has entrusted him with, the poor policyholders have to take up some meditation.

As for the Apollo Bramwell hospital, while the patients have to fork out much more for the same services and the staff no longer know who to turn to for help, the colour of the money Omega Ark was supposed to have paid has not been seen yet. Instead, more public funds are apparently being shelled out to pay for the running of the hospital.

While the country is bleeding, and those who invested their hard-earned money will get only a fraction of it, some ministers seem to have discovered a gold mine. They are digging so deep in the country’s coffers it is obscene! And their cronies were not left out. From Kailash Trilochun to Mary Jane Yerriah going through Youshreen Choomka, and now the new blue-eyed boy Krishna Athal, heaven is really bleeding manna for them. Their qualifications? Their absolute loyalty to the MSM party. Little else is needed.

And everyone looks us in the eye and talks about their competence. Trilochun goes further and talks about “fairness and reasonableness of fees”! Nineteen million? Reasonable? Rs170,000 a month for Choomka? Reasonable? A monthly package of Rs180,000 for the newly-qualified Yerriah? Reasonable? While the country continues to haemorrhage a few billion at a time!

Oh, please allow me to weep my sad bosom empty!

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