Those who thought that Yogida Sawmynaden would not have the indecency to show up in parliament on Tuesday or that he would be asked not to attend must have underestimated the power he wields within his party. Right now, he must be the strongest man sitting in the national assembly, holding the fate of everyone in his party in one single hand. As for those who think that Soopramanien Kistnen’s family will see justice under this government, they must simply be daydreaming. No chance! No way!

What is now certain is that a murder was committed and that the murderers are roaming our streets freely and getting away with murder. Literally! This is the telling conclusion that the brave and conscientious magistrate Vidya Mungroo-Jugurnath came to and expressed in a report that stayed in a hidden drawer until someone who refused to condone the murder leaked it to Téléplus. Far from weakening Sawmynaden, the magistrate’s report actually emboldened him. It disclosed a number of possible motives that the magistrate, based on the extensive work she did, thinks could have led to the murder of the MSM chief agent in the prime minister’s constituency.

One of these motives could be the “registration of foreign nationals as voters in Constituency N°8 against financial payment to secure votes and the money which was used as expenses during the campaign may have exceeded the sum prescribed by law”. The other and “strongest motive for the crime” was the contracts dished out by the State Trading Corporation during the Covid 19 and for which, the report explicitly states, “kickbacks were given to Yogida Sawmynaden”. Considering the gravity of these motives, all Sawmynaden has to do is talk and the whole government comes crumbling down. That is the power he has over all those ministers who have been tripping over themselves to come to his rescue, each ridiculing himself a bit more than the other.

So the attorney general, who is supposed to be the independent adviser of the government, puts on his partisan political hat and is appalled, not at the bone-chilling intricate doing of a mafia at work, but rather at the fact that thanks to a real patriot, a whole nation came to know something that should never have been hidden from it in the first place! And even the minister of health came to openly defend Sawmynaden, in spite of the “damning” report! Remember that most of the contracts, pertaining to the protection of public health, being talked about were dished out to friends and cronies during the lockdown. Obscene amounts of our money were disbursed to newly created or dubious companies, some of which charged 10 to 20 times the price and some delivered faulty goods. Nor should you forget that the chairman of the committee was none other than the prime minister himself, who presided over meetings where absolutely no minutes were taken! Most of all, let’s not lose sight of one other sad fact: Kistnen was not the only casualty in this tragic saga. A ‘suicide’ epidemic seems to have hit procurement officers and continues to make casualties at the Procurement Office. Some of these victims have remained nameless and their families are grieving in silence and fear.

There was a time when Sawmynaden was hugging the walls and more absent than present in parliament. Many of his colleagues seemed to distance themselves from him. That time is over. He is now walking into the national assembly with his head high. The more proof of his culpability transpires, the more desperate his colleagues will become and will trip over themselves to defend him and save their privileges.

If I were him, I would ask to be reinstated in a higher position and see who would oppose that. After all, it begs the question, if he is as innocent as his colleagues are claiming, why was he made to step down in the first place? He is today powerful enough to ask for and obtain at least his ministerial seat back.