🇲🇺 Rs 30 billion oil contract lands a former PM before the FCC

Rs 30 billion oil contract lands a former PM before the FCC

The Financial Crimes Commission will call in former prime minister Pravind Jugnauth, the MSM leader, over the award of a Rs 30 billion oil supply contract to the Mercantile and Maritime Group back in 2023.

No date yet. His lawyer, Raouf Gulbul, is not free, and the MSM camp says Jugnauth is ready to answer questions. He is far from alone in the file: former finance minister Renganaden Padayachy faced investigators again on Wednesday, weeks after his June arrest with former commerce minister Soodesh Callichurn on suspicion of a public official using office for gratification.

The police have now summoned former ICT minister Deepak Balgobin for Friday, without saying why. Padayachy and Callichurn were first held in June, and the questioning has climbed steadily up the old cabinet since. One 2023 signature, and the roll call keeps getting longer.

Satish Faugoo takes charge of the police watchdog

President Dharambeer Gokhool has appointed Satish Faugoo to lead the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the body that investigate complaints against officers, for a four-year term. Faugoo took his oath at State House, Réduit, on Wednesday.

The commission fields public complaints against the police, from heavy-handed arrests to deaths in custody, so who runs it is not a small detail. A term fixed for four years is the part that matters here. A watchdog you can replace at will is easy to ignore; one with a set span has room to bite, and a backlog of cases waiting on it.

Drug squad detains a police officer in a Rs 5 million bust

A VIPSU officer aged 32 sits in detention after the drug squad seized about 345 grams of cocaine worth close to Rs 5 million at Triolet on Wednesday. Police arrested a cook aged 20 alongside him.

Officers found Rs 8,000 at policeman's home, cash they think came from trafficking, plus 16 sachets and Rs 1,250 at the cook's place. Police also took his car and the other man's motorcycle, and the inquiry runs under a police superintendent.

A VIPSU badge is supposed to sit on the other side of a drug raid.

Marriage will no longer shield a rapist under a new bill

Attorney General Gavin Glover moved the Criminal Code (Amendment) Bill for a second reading. It scraps marriage as a defence to a rape charge and stiffens penalties when murder or manslaughter happens amid domestic abuse, drawing on the new Domestic Abuse Act.

Emirates goes to two daily flights to Mauritius

An Emirates delegation met PM Ramgoolam on Wednesday to confirm a second daily Dubai service and a new airport lounge, a fresh vote of confidence in the island as travel demand picks back up.

Shorts

Union tells the IMF to pack up and leave – The NTUC wants the IMF's local office gone after its report on pension reform.

Supreme Court usher threatened at a door – A Camp-de-Masque usher, aged 29, says he got death threats serving a legal notice.

Armed raiders take Rs 1.3m at Pereybère – Raiders robbed a teacher in her home Tuesday night, taking Rs 1.3 million in cash and gold.

Eagle Insurance ties up with Discovery – Eagle is launching global health cover with South Africa's Discovery Health for local clients.

Minister rethinks the 40 km/h ramp cap – After driver anger, Transport Minister Osman Mahomed backs reviewing the 40 km/h limit on some ramps.

7.3 years

Women in Mauritius now outlive men by that stretch, female life expectancy reaching 78 years at birth in the 2025 Statistics Mauritius data. Men trail well behind.

Rs 67.5 billion

State bodies and public enterprises together carry that much debt, PM Ramgoolam told Parliament. The figure sits well outside the headline budget books.

144

refugees and migrants died or went missing off the coast of Mauritania last week, the United Nations said, one of the deadliest stretches yet on that Atlantic crossing.

Liberia makes its biggest ever cocaine seizure

Liberian police say they have pulled off the country's largest drug bust, raiding a store near Monrovia and seizing what they believe is a large quantity of cocaine. West Africa has become a busy corridor for South American cocaine heading to Europe, record hauls like this barely raise an eyebrow now.

Kenyan lawyers walk out over court graft

Lawyers across Kenya boycotted the courts on Wednesday, protesting judicial corruption and years of delay.

Congo opposition shelves a planned protest

DRC opposition parties called off a march after President Tshisekedi promised a national dialogue.

Trump clears Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium

President Trump has approved a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that lets Riyadh enrich uranium at home for civilian power. Enrichment is also the step that takes a programme to the edge of a weapon, which is why the deal worries arms control experts across an already tense Middle East. Israel has long resisted letting any Gulf state enrich on its own soil.

Rahul Gandhi detained at a Delhi protest

Police detained opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and other Congress figures as they demanded PM Modi resign.

Spain's worst wildfire this year nears Madrid

A wildfire outside Madrid has scorched 30,000 hectares and displaced 1,200 people, with another heatwave on the way.

Hitler's birth house becomes a police station

What do you do with the house where a dictator was born? Austria's answer: a police station. The building in Braunau am Inn, Hitler's birthplace, had drifted into a quiet pilgrimage site for the far right.

A police post, officials reckon, is the one use no admirer can romanticise. Hard to lay a wreath at a front desk.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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