🇲🇺 Kroll report pins Rs 1.2 billion in losses on Air Mauritius plane deals

Kroll report pins Rs 1.2 billion in losses on Air Mauritius plane deals

PM Ramgoolam laid out the findings of the Kroll forensic review on Air Mauritius in Parliament on Tuesday. The headline number: the sale of four Airbus jets cost the national airline an estimated Rs 1.2 billion.

The review covers the voluntary administration years, 2020 to 2024, when the carrier sold, leased and bought aircraft. PM Ramgoolam described a suspected scheme involving former senior managers, and said legal action against ex-directors is on the cards. Kroll is the corporate investigations firm the government hired to trace the money.

Between 2014 and 2024 the airline added eleven planes, ten leased and one bought, with the price tags hidden behind confidentiality clauses. Those Airbus jets were grounded around a hundred times in a decade for technical faults. Two more were simply scrapped.

A report that names losses but hides the contract prices is half a forensic. The figure to watch is the first charge sheet, not the next press statement.

Rs 1.2 billion is the loss on four planes alone; the prices on the other ten leases are still sealed.

MRA gets six new ways to watch how you earn and spend

The Mauritius Revenue Authority, the country's tax and customs body, is widening its reach under the 2026-2027 Budget. Electricity bills, luxury cars, casino spending, influencers and even crypto wallets now sit inside its cross-checking net.

The pitch is to close the gap between declared income and visible lifestyle. The same data run also flagged a separate trend: public-sector pay drove the national wage index up 4.1% in the first quarter, to 139 points.

More eyes is the easy part. Whether the matching actually catches the big fish, or just the salaried, is the test.

Victim's jewellery turns up in suspect's car in Petit-Raffray killing

Earrings, chains and bracelets belonging to Soobhawtee Juggessur, 63, were found in the vehicle driven by Mehedy Hassan Rana, a Bangladeshi national held over her murder. Detectives from the Major Crime Investigation Team recovered the items on Monday.

That car first put detectives on his trail. CCTV from a restaurant near the victim's home flagged it. His partner told police the clothes on the footage match what he usually wears. He will now be confronted with the new evidence.

Police ease entry rules as recruit numbers fall

The Mauritius Police Force is loosening its conditions for Police Constable and Woman Police Constable posts, after a drop in applications. Lower demand for the job is doing what recruitment drives could not: forcing the bar down.

Speaker to Lesjongard: I opened the door, you close it

A sharp exchange in the National Assembly put the Speaker and opposition leader Joe Lesjongard nose to nose. "I've opened the door; it is for you to close the door," she told him, and the line did not go unnoticed on the benches.

Shorts

16,128 speeding tickets since January – Transport Minister Osman Mahomed told Parliament of the tally for this year so far.

CEB meter reader suspended over fake bills – A Central Electricity Board reader was suspended over falsified readings.

Fake CID officers rob man of Rs 30,000 – Two men posing as police robbed a 25-year-old at Mapou.

Man, 20, held for stoning police van – A Cassis resident was arrested after stones hit a police vehicle at Bell Village.

611 new gun licences since 2021 – Police issued 611 new firearm licences between 2021 and June 2026.

5.6%

how much pay rose over the year to the first quarter of 2026, Statistics Mauritius reports, with the public-sector bill doing most of the lifting.

US$120 million

the state losses an Indonesian court tied to a school-laptop graft case, jailing Gojek co-founder Nadiem Makarim for ten years.

30 years

the US prison term handed to exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, convicted of defrauding supporters and investors of more than a billion dollars.

25,000 foreigners flee South Africa as deadline lands

South African police deployed across hotspots on Tuesday, the day an unofficial cut-off set by citizen groups for undocumented foreigners to leave the country expired.

Thousands of Malawians are already stranded in makeshift camps, waiting for a way home. A deadline nobody in government set is now setting the pace on the ground.

Ebola spreads to a fourth province in DR Congo

The outbreak has now killed 360 people out of 1,274 confirmed cases, the World Health Organization says.

Senegal calls a referendum after curbing the presidency

Lawmakers passed a bill shifting power from president to parliament, and the head of state has now put it to a national vote.

US and Iran agree to pull back from the Strait of Hormuz

Washington and Tehran have agreed to halt attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and move talks to Doha, the narrow channel that carries a fifth of the world's oil.

Reports on the terms still conflict, so treat it as a pause, not a peace. For Mauritius, the read is at the pump: a calmer Hormuz keeps shipping and fuel costs steadier.

Parcel bomb in Monaco injures three, suspect at large

A rare parcel bomb attack wounded three people, among them Ukrainian tycoon Vadym Yermolaiev. The attacker is still being hunted.

US top court shields phone location data from dragnet warrants

The Supreme Court ruled that geofence warrants, which sweep up everyone's phone location in an area, need Fourth Amendment privacy protection.

The men who carved up old Curepipe, one arpent at a time

Long before the malls, Curepipe was a list of names on land grants. In 1757 one Etienne Colas received 312 arpents that ran down to Pope Hennessy street and took in part of Trou-aux-Cerfs.

The deeds change hands across two centuries: a widow remarries a cavalry captain, parcels split, a 625-arpent estate at Mare-aux-Joncs goes to an officer. The town you know was once a long ledger of concessions.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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