We were treated to a grandstanding performance in parliament on Tuesday. One single act and we reached the only possible conclusion: that bribes had indeed been given but no one took them! Just as in the Boskalis case, until the verdict was finally reached.

The storyline was compelling. Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Collendavelloo started with the promise that the St Louis energy plant scandal would be clarified very quickly. By then, we were in the presence of the decision of the African Development Bank (AfDB) to officially debar the firm Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor (BWSC) for having “financially rewarded members of the Mauritian administration and others…” We also knew that BWSC had conceded that some of its officials had indeed given bribes and suspended five of them, one of whom – Martin Kok Jensen – was seen side by side with Collendavelloo in a photo published by l’express yesterday. We also knew that the AfDB had informed the CEB of this act of corruption. And by then the CEB general manager, Shamshir Mukoon, had been suspended from his post and the whole board revoked and replaced. The logical second act that everyone expected was for the deputy prime minister to bow out in the middle of jeers and shouting down. 

Speculation about Collendavelloo’s possible replacement was wild and bets were taken. Suddenly, he rose from the dead and took us back to 2014! He criticised the leader of the Labour Party and put the blame squarely on the then-general manager of the CEB; he accused the leader of the MMM of very serious sins in a speech full of innuendos and served one of the best performances of all time. We spent so much time in 2014 that we forgot that the contract had been awarded in 2016! We also erased from our memory the fact that, in 2014, the award of the contract to BWSC – at Rs700 million less – had been rejected by the Independent Review Panel – where freshly crowned close (very close) friends and cronies now reigned supreme – and another tender was floated. The show was so superb that our memories became blank again as we watched live the birth of a hero by the name of Collendavelloo innocently asking, “What would I do with Rs700 million?”   

The storyline of this show is eerily similar to a previous one by another stand-up actor called Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo. We had all thought he was dead and buried until he came up with two concise sentences that were to change his fate: “I am the cleanest member of this government,” he had said with a threatening finger. “I am not the one with bank accounts in Hong Kong!” The rest is history.

Collendavelloo did not publicly threaten. But rather than defend himself, he put everyone else in the dock and tried them in their absence with his own facts. How does that prove his innocence in one of the biggest scandals of this century? Perhaps he didn’t need to prove anything. His small audience seemed won over before he even started. Each had his own reason for enjoying the performance. Some a Rs250 million piece of beachfront land; some a Rs93 million contract to a pharmacist with all the thorns cleared for a medicine-manufacturing plant; some are still grateful for the visit of Álvaro Sobrinho. Others are sure they will be rewarded tomorrow for their own performance as spectators in today’s show.

“The show was so superb that our memories became blank again as we watched live the birth of a hero by the name of Collendavelloo innocently asking, ‘What would I do with Rs700 million?’” 

So, the grand performance of taking the whole country for a ride was made that much more dramatic with the endless wild applause and tap la tab of government parliamentarians, including the prime minister himself. Not even the budget speech got that much applause. At some point, I was expecting a standing ovation to hail the new hero. Pity, it did not happen. But the firecrackers outside by ML supporters, led by Former Chairman of the CEB Seety Naidoo made up for it. 

Naturally, the obsequious applause was not only for the irrelevant, intellectually dishonest performance. It was also for the escape afforded to corruption and graft since bribes have, according to BWSC and the AfDB, been duly paid but not apparently received by anyone. It is a signal to the international community that we are not a real democracy with independent institutions and leaders serious about taking the fight of corruption beyond lip service. And lo and behold, while we are embroiled in allegations of corruption and blacklisting, the UK is signing a deal with Rwanda Finance to support the development of a new international financial capital for Africa. Congratulations to our African sister. But it is a very sad day for our jurisdiction and therefore for our youth.