Or the past decade, Mauritius has not so much opened its economy as given the invisible hand carte blanche to prise it open with a capitalist crowbar. Any trick in the neoliberal book you can think of, chances are it’s been introduced here. All in the name of “attracting” investors. Unfortunately, these “reforms” have not been accompanied by any meaningful drive to strengthen our institutions or reinforce their independence. A knock-on effect of this lack of accountability and weak regulation is opacity and massive scope for abuse. These are tantamount to chucking chum into shark-invested waters sooner or later, the predators will come circling. In this highly globalised world, scam artists and organized criminals are always looking for novel ways and places to conduct their activities. And Mauritius, sadly, is putting itself on the world of places where dodgy people enjoy doing deals.

Scandals, everywhere you look. It’s utterly depressing. What’s worse though is the routine response they elicit from the authorities: investigations that last just long enough for public interest to wane before petering out into nothingness. At the moment though, there are so many of them, and ones with political ramifications to boot, that government looks punch drunk, swinging aimlessly at opponents in the vain hope of landing a blow. Not even the prime minister, who usually enjoys toying with the opposition in parliament, has been able to rise above the melee. Indeed, these past couple weeks Navin Ramgoolam has looked increasingly at sea in the national assembly, occasionally reduced to deflecting the opposition’s questions without actually answering them. He has only himself to blame.

Although public institutions have always been politicized to a degree in Mauritius, the way they’ve been hijacked by the executive in recent times is virtually without precedent. They’ve been staffed at almost every level with people who possess no other qualification than the right political affiliation. This is bad enough in ordinary times, but coupled with the opening of the economy, it’s positively toxic: whilst the opportunities for corruption and other illegal activities have proliferated, the bodies charged with combating these crimes have been weakened, sometimes almost to the point of insignificance. In other words, if you have more cars on the roads and weak policing, you’re bound to have more accidents.

Now, whether this authority vacuum arose out of design or incompetence is a moot point, but it’s having a nefarious effect on public life. No amount of state-sanctioned censorship or threats can mask the stench coming from all these scandals. That the prime minister wants to hang onto his slim majority is his prerogative. But it should not be at any cost. Does he have the choice though? We all know what happens when the food dries up for sharks who’ve gotten used to being fed they eventually turn on those who used to feed them. It’s in their nature.

Nicholas RAINER