The World Economic Forum’s Africa Competitiveness Report 2013 can be tough going. But it’s worth reading nevertheless. Even if just to confirm what you already knew. Mauritius of course is quite fond of these lists since it usually finds itself at the top or thereabouts. This one is no different. In a raft of indices, the country boasts high scores, beating most of its African neighbours hands down. But that’s only part of the picture. Indeed, the country doesn’t, ahem, pull up any trees in the environmental sustainability category. Worse, its ecological backwardness actually impacts negatively on its overall performance. It’s looking increasingly like we’ve been found out.

And it’s not just the Africa Competitiveness Report that’s become wise to our shenanigans. Not too long ago, the Travel and Tourism Index also noted the country’s environmental deterioration. Although such finger-wagging is hardly good publicity for a country that relies heavily on projecting a heavenly image of itself, it’s still better than some of the arbitrary lists that have put Mauritius at the top of the environment friendly heap (yes Yale, I’m looking at you). For one, it says a lot about us as a country. It tells us for example that we have our priorities all mixed up. More specifically, it indicates that for all the lionization of the economic miracle, we’re not really that advanced.

For what good is it to rank in the top three in Africa in seven of the twelve pillars established by the World Economic Forum if we can’t even look after our natural environment? Our score is so bad that were the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) to include environmental sustainability, Mauritius would rank far lower than its current 54th place. Indeed, our score of 4.35 in the GCI would drop to 3.66. “Reflecting findings from the international comparison above, the table reveals that Algeria, Mauritius, and Morocco are largely affected by their poor performance in the environmental dimension, while the scores of Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania are negatively affected by their performance in the social sustainability measures”, says the report.

And unless something is done to arrest this decline it’s only going to get worse in the future. Far worse. Of course, it’s easy to blame the authorities. They’ve eschewed their responsibilities to the point of criminal recklessness. Can you believe it for example that the committee for the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan hasn’t met in years? One can’t help but wonder why people who aren’t interested in doing these jobs accept them in the first place. Hopefully, someone in officialdom will be held accountable for the country’s pitiful performance, but in truth the country as a whole is woefully unprepared for the challenges at hand.

That’s why this report should come as a wake-up call for all Mauritians. We’re basically past the point of being able to blame anyone. For all the good it’ll do we might as well not bother. So what’s the answer? Clean up Mauritius, at every level.