“The wolves of place d’Armes (part II).” Tel est l’intitulé de la réflexion de Navin Ramgoolam, portant sur l’inscription de Maurice sur la liste noire des centres financiers de la Commission européenne, le 7 mai. Le pays n’ayant pas fait la démonstration de sa capacité réelle à lutter efficacement contre le blanchiment d’argent et le financement du terrorisme.

Dans la première partie («Les loups de la place d’Armes», en français cette fois), le 3 mai, l’ancien Premier ministre dénonçait la situation dans laquelle se retrouvait la SBM et les «write off» de Rs 7,7 milliards de «bad debts».

Dans sa «part II», postée hier soir, jeudi 14 mai, sur sa page Facebook, le leader du Parti travailliste revient sur la Private Notice Question d’Arvin Boolell. Le leader de l’opposition avait interrogé le ministre des Services financiers, Mahen Seeruttun, au sujet de cette inclusion du centre financier Maurice dans les mauvais papiers de l’Union européenne. Le ministre avait rendu responsable le régime travailliste. Inévitablement, la réponse de l’ancien chef du gouvernement n’a pas tardé. La voici en intégralité ci-dessous :

“In his reply to the PNQ of the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister for Financial Services holds the Labour Party responsible for the blacklisting of Mauritius by the European Union.

It is a blatant lie and he misled Parliament, which is a very serious matter in any parliamentary democracy.

Let me set the record straight:  

1.Mauritius was on the grey list when I became Prime Minister in 2005. Being on the grey list is having been given a “carton jaune” in a football match. It means you have to be careful otherwise you might get a “carton rouge” and put on the blacklist. 

I immediately had several meetings with the then Minister of Finance, Dr Rama Sithanen and sent him to Paris to meet high ranking officials of the OECD to argue our case and take commitments so that we could be moved instead to the white list. 

I made good use of all my diplomatic contacts in Europe and we honoured our commitments with the result that we were successful in our bid to have Mauritius to move from the grey list to the white list. 

2.The financial services got a new impetus as a result. It contributed up to 15% of GDP and employment rose in that sector. 

Many young professionals joined the sector which raised the number of employees to nearly 15,000 thus further democratizing the economy. 

My government thus left a thriving financial services sector when I left office in 2014. 

3.In September 2018 – four years after this government had been in charge - the Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) was published under the aegis of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG). Mauritius was found to be compliant with only 14 out of its 40 recommendations. This was followed by a letter from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) which is an organisation set up by the G7 in Paris since July 1989. This letter was ignored by the MSM led government.
 
4.Since there was no response by the government, the FATF then placed Mauritius on its list of “Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring” in February 2020 – that is it moved us from the white list to the grey list. 

5.It is only then, in February 2020 that Mauritius took a high level political commitment to work with FATF and the ESAAMLG to try to remedy the situation. 

6.But since no real action was being taken, only unfulfilled commitments, the European Commission placed Mauritius in the list of High Risk Third Countries on the 7th May 2020. In other words, we were now in the blacklist. 

7.It is crystal clear that the Prime Minister, the government ministers and the political nominees have miserably failed to implement the agreed recommendations between September 2018 and May 2020. They have failed to deliver on their commitments taken in February 2020 and they bear the full responsibility of the EU blacklisting Mauritius in May 2020. 

8.The Minister for Financial Services has unashamedly lied and misled Parliament by trying to lay the blame at the feet of the Labour-PMSD government I led. 

It is an undeniable fact that during my stewardship we were never on the blacklist. On the contrary we managed to move Mauritius from the grey list to the white list. Tangible evidence of economic diplomacy in action, which has been totally absent now. 

Let me remind our countrymen and women that this same team’s incompetence has been wreaking havoc on our economic legacy built through the sweat and blood of our forefathers.

1.Air Mauritius has been placed under voluntary administration. 

2.SBM’s foundations have been shaken and the full truth has yet to emerge.  

3.The Bank of Mauritius is being converted into a department of the Ministry of Finance. “Du jamais vu” since the creation of the central bank. 

4.Mauritius had already lost its competitive advantage in relation to the agreement with India through the DTAA, when the MSM led government unashamedly chose financial compensation to finance outlandish projects to the detriment of the jobs of the young professionals in the financial sector.

Now by its inaction and lack of foresight the government has further put the whole banking sector - local and offshore at great risks.  

5.It should be pointed out that the ESAAMLG and EU have been very critical of this government. 

They said that this government is good at ticking boxes and making commitments but when it comes to thorough investigations and taking sanctions they have failed completely. 

They even point out that they do not believe that the actual FSC can deliver and there is no real supervision. 

The report also points out that they have been unable to trace the ultimate beneficiaries in offshore companies. 

Their incompetence to pierce the corporate veil to unmask the ultimate beneficiaries of these suspicious offshore companies is blatant. 

Should we be surprised? 

The very men who failed to do their duties in September 2018 and May 2020 are now at the helm. 

In September 2018:  
(i)The Prime Minister and Minister of Finance was Pravind Jugnauth.   
(ii)The chairperson of the FSC was Renganaden Padayachy who was also the first Deputy Governor of the Bank of Mauritius. 
(iii)The CEO of FSC was Harvesh Seegoolam.  

And in February 2020 and May 2020 who were in charge? 
These very men.  
(i)The Prime Minister: Pravind Jugnauth 
(ii)The Finance Minister: Renganaden Padayachy 
(iii)The Governor of the Bank of Mauritius: Harvesh Seegoolam 

And the post of the CEO of FSC is still vacant! 

The same team that was responsible for dereliction of their duties are still in charge. 

Unless the government pulls up its socks and does what has to be done now, we are unlikely to be removed from the blacklist with all the dire consequences which this entails. 

We can only hope against hope that they do act to remove the gathering dark clouds hanging on our country.