Had this year been a movie, we would have switched off our TV set after the appearance of the first ghost and run to bed to hide from it all. Unfortunately, it was real and the ghosts kept haunting us throughout.

We first saw the ghost of SARS 1 crawling towards us slowly but surely in the form of SARS 2 or Covid 19. We have had no training wheels for it so we braced ourselves in whatever way we could. Our delay in reacting cost us 10 lives that are still being mourned by families across the country. Ten people, many of whom had no reason to die.

Then we have had images of ghosts of our compatriots being stranded across the world after the closure of our frontiers. Uncertainty, helplessness, distress, isolation, broken families and a lot of pain were our daily lot as we were looking out at a world that seemed to be falling apart.

The ghost of dysfunctional institutions and its lot of nominations based solely on proximity with power did not take long to rear its head and, before we knew what hit us, we found ourselves on the FAFT grey list and the EU black list. This unwanted honour conspired with the effects of Covid and bad management to make the year even darker.

As we kept turning the pages on this ghastly calendar, with the Covid pandemic bleeding through all of it, the ghost of incompetence came to haunt us in the Wakashio disastrous episode. The country woke up to the fact that there were no adults in charge. The lack of timely and effective action resulted in the loss of marine life, of human lives (the SGD barge episode) and livelihoods in the worst ecological disaster we have ever had.

The same ghosts kept haunting us throughout this annus horribilis as we saw the State Bank of Mauritius being reduced to a shadow of what it was and our national airline ground to a standstill, with the ensuing human tragedies.

But this horrendous year was not an annus horribilis for everyone. The ghost of corruption kept looming over us throughout. As we were drained, dealing with boredom, anxiety, overwork or, worse, unemployment, a lucky few were busy dishing out juicy contracts between friends, cronies and hangers-on.

“From the dead, Kistnen continued the fight he probably died for: exposing a mafia that he apparently used and was used by: various documents in his possession started appearing from the depth of his grave, giving those in power sleepless nights.”

The year ended with the revenge of the ghosts of several people who died in mysterious circumstances in an unprecedented ‘suicide pandemic’. Almost every day, we woke up to a new body found somewhere and whose death was attributed to suicide. The most iconic of these is Soopramanien Kistnen’s body, which was found scorched in the middle of a sugarcane field. The police were quick to rule it as a suicide before the suspicion around his death thickened and led to a judicial inquiry.

From the dead, Kistnen continued the fight he probably died for: exposing a mafia that he apparently used and was used by: various documents in his possession started appearing from the depth of his grave, giving those in power sleepless nights. That lack of sleep was peppered by nightmares which came from Kistnen’s grieving widow, who entered a lawsuit against Minister of Commerce Yogida Sawmynaden. 

Haunted by the ghosts of the dead and the living and trying to hide behind his boss, who himself is facing his own ghosts from a distant past bearing a name that now invokes the worst nightmares – Angus Road – Sawmynaden could not escape the dock.

The ghost of drugs – a scourge killing our country at a heartbreaking rate – did not fail to strike either. The arrest of none other than our former police commissioner, now in charge of our prisons, who was formally charged of ‘using office for gratification’ in a corruption case involving a notorious drug dealer dealt a serious blow to the highest level of our law enforcement institutions! Add that to the minister of commerce – still in office – while standing in the dock, and the prime minister being investigated by the ICAC in another corruption case and you will understand why this year has been haunted.

Considering that some at the very top of government and government institutions are facing their ghosts, not only is this year bleak but, sadly, the coming one is not likely to be better. More ghosts will start appearing again as early as the beginning of January. Some ‘suicides’ we have seen recently may well come back to haunt those in power. So let’s keep a smile while bracing ourselves for the worst. Happy New Year all the same!