Fight the good fight

As declared a month ago, We Love Mauritius joined Kalipso and George Ah Yan in the fight to end the progressive privatisation of the public domain. The first battle was to stop a restaurant being built on Mont Choisy Public Beach.

Today that battle has been decisively won with the State Law Office deciding that such private businesses can only operate on land that has been “de-proclaimed”, i.e. removed from the public domain, in other words privatised. Three cheers for Dr Abu Kasenally, Minister of Housing and Lands, who announced to us last week that de-proclaiming pubic beaches is out of the question.

War on Error: Flat Island and Ilot Gabriel

The following email has been sent to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Subject: Breaches of the leases for Flat Island and Ilot Gabriel

Prosecution of the CEO of MT

On 26th June 2010, Dr Richard L Munisamy made a statement to the police at Pointe aux Canonniers station accusing Mr Sahrat Dutt Lallah, CEO of Mauritius Telecom (MT), of contravening Section 29 of the Data Protection Act 2004.

29. Unlawful disclosure of personal data
(1) Any data controller who, without lawful excuse, discloses personal data in any manner that is incompatible with the purposes for which such data has been collected shall commit an offence.

According to an MT employee, the private database of Orange customers’ phone numbers had been released to the Alliance de l’Avenir who had then requested that MT send a message to subscribers soliciting their support in the general elections of May 2010. Apparently, MT made no charge for this service. It is understood that the case, OB732/10, has recently been transferred to regional headquarters at Piton where the decision to prosecute will be taken.

“Ti Cretin”

“Ti Cretin” was the nickname given to Pravind Jugnauth by Paul Berenger at the beginning of February 2010. We have been trying to give our new Minister of Finance the benefit of the doubt while he found his feet and Ali Mansoor tried to cast his World Bank spell over him.

It is now clear that Pravind is committed to turning Mauritius into a “Duty Free Island”. He has acknowledged that this will lead to a short to medium term reduction in tax revenues. But he believes it will be more than made up for in the long term by the creation of a new pillar of the economy by turning Mauritius into a shopping paradise. He is convinced that one of the major benefits will be to force our industries to be more globally competitive. However, he has conceded that residual duty will remain on certain items to protect local manufacturers.

The Freedom Fighters

Yesterday a dozen or so concerned citizens were battling to defend the rights of Mauritian citizens and to halt the privatisation of the public domain. Led by General Georges Ah Yan, the freedom fighters were battling the Beach Authority at the District Council in Mapou. Vassen Kauppaymoothoo, from Special Ops, joined the fray just in the nick of time, straight from his glorious victory against the Ports Authority, who wanted to water down the environmental protection laws that govern them.

The background to the conflict is as follows. The Beach Authority (without the authority of the District Council or the Ministry of Housing and Lands) had been busy converting the old toilets on Mont Choisy public beach into a restaurant. It is widely known that they had promised to lease it at a bargain price to the infamous gangster and owner of Cafe de la Plage in Grand Baie, Mr Achee Leung. This privileged crime lord has also been gifted (along with political stooge, Mr Jayraj Woochit) with Ilot Gabriel by the Prime Minister.