🇲🇺 Cabinet clears a pension overhaul that scraps the BRP

Cabinet clears a pension overhaul that scraps the BRP

The Cabinet has approved the Finance Bill 2026 and sent it to the National Assembly, and with it a full rewrite of how Mauritius pays for old age. The bill amends the National Pensions Act to phase out the Basic Retirement Pension, the universal grant every citizen now collects at 60, and replace it with the reforms first trailed in the 2026-2027 Budget. Successive governments have leaned on that grant for decades, which is exactly why touching it is politically radioactive.

Junior Finance Minister Dhaneshwar Damry has taken the government's case to the airwaves. Without change, he warns, "in 15 years, nobody will have a pension," arguing the old model simply cannot survive an ageing island and a shrinking base of workers paying in.

Not everyone is sold. The Platform Komin Syndikal says it was never even consulted before the bill was drafted. Paul Bérenger calls it reckless to rush two heavy bills through the House on the same day, with barely time to read them.

Replacing a grant everyone gets is the easy vote; the hard part starts when workers see what the new deal actually pays them.

A Mauritian sits in a Saudi jail over a lottery prize that never was

Ganeshan Irlen, a 59-year-old entrepreneur from Pointe-aux-Sables, has sat in a Saudi cell since 19 June, arrested at Dammam airport with drugs in his luggage. His lawyer, Senior Counsel Rama Valayden, insists scammers set him up: Irlen believed he had won an online lottery during lockdown and flew to Uganda in 2024 to collect.

Valayden has written to Foreign Affairs Minister Dhananjay Ramful, asking the state to fund a defence the family cannot afford. The family swears scammers tricked him, a Saudi court will still want the drugs explained, and that gap is the whole case.

A tear gas grenade on a rooftop sends 16 to hospital in Mahébourg

Sixteen people, seven of them children, needed treatment at Mahébourg hospital after a tear gas grenade went off at Cité Tolle on Friday night. Jocelyne Pierre Louis, 75, first thought she had a kitchen gas leak; then smoke filled the house and neighbours pulled her out.

Police recovered the spent grenade from her roof and are now hunting a man of 46 already wanted on two arrest warrants, after a brawl between residents spilled over into her yard.

Islamic Cultural Centre chief reported to the FCC over Hadj visas

Two "complementary" Hadj 2026 visas, both for one man's household, have become a matter for the Financial Crimes Commission (FCC). The president of the Islamic Cultural Centre now faces a complaint over pilgrimage visas granted to his own wife and son, while ordinary applicants queue for a scarce seat.

Mauritians spend more in rupees but get less for it

Households keep spending more in rupee terms, yet final consumption is slipping as a share of the economy, the latest figures show. Fuller in numbers, thinner in what they actually buy: prices are doing heavy lifting. It is the quiet arithmetic behind every headline about the cost of living this year.

Shorts

A constable steps between a sabre and a mother – Constable Legris shielded a mother of three from a sabre attacker, risking his life to do it.

Mauritius becomes the 70th Artemis signatory – Mauritius has joined the Artemis Accords on space exploration, becoming the 70th signatory.

SBM's group CEO lands under investigation – State Bank of Mauritius group CEO Raoul Gufflet is now under investigation.

Education Blueprint heads to Cabinet next – The final schools Blueprint, after the phone ban, is on its way to Cabinet.

Rs 200,000 in jewels vanish at a wedding – A 64-year-old guest was stripped of Rs 200,000 in jewellery at a Terre-Rouge wedding.

Rs 2 billion

A single cargo of heavy fuel oil could cost that much if Gulf tensions choke the tanker routes, Patrick Assirvaden warns, and the bill would quietly reach every electricity account.

$765 million

China has slapped that penalty on Trip.com, ruling the travel giant abused its grip on online hotel bookings. Plenty of Mauritius trips get booked on it.

$1 billion

That is the EU's antitrust fine on Google, and it has President Trump threatening tariffs over how Europe polices American tech. Brussels calls it law; Washington calls it a shakedown.

Diego Garcia back in the crosshairs as Mauritius watches

Iranian officials have named Diego Garcia, the US and UK base on the Chagos archipelago that Mauritius claims, as a potential target if the Gulf conflict widens. For Mauritius, the threat lands uncomfortably close: sovereignty over Chagos was recognised only recently, yet the base and its risks stay London and Washington's to run.

Port Louis has no forces in the game. A strike near the archipelago would still drag its waters into someone else's war.

Niger lawyers demand Bazoum's release

Three years after Niger's 2023 coup, lawyers are pressing for the release of deposed President Mohamed Bazoum, still held in Niamey.

Uganda airlifts 12 giraffes away from the drills

Uganda's wildlife authority has moved 12 endangered Nubian giraffes out of its biggest park to spare them the oil drilling moving in.

India's education minister quits as exam anger boils over

India's Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has resigned after weeks of the "Cockroach" youth protests, a nationwide revolt over leaked exam papers and a system students say is rigged against them.

It is a rare scalp for a street movement in Prime Minister Modi's India, proof the exam leak scandals have finally cost someone at the top their job.

A NATO intern is held in Belgium for spying

Belgium has arrested a Canadian intern, a woman of Chinese origin, on suspicion of spying at NATO's military headquarters in Mons.

Pogacar smashes the Alpe d'Huez record

Tadej Pogacar won stage 19 in record time up Alpe d'Huez as Carapaz took stage 20, leaving him one day from a fifth Tour title.

When Facebook turns into a courtroom

When does filming a suspect tip over into passing sentence? In Mauritius, faces of people merely accused of theft are going viral before any court sees the case, tried and convicted in the comments.

Lawyer Erickson Mooneapillay puts it plainly: in a state of law, courts judge. A clip meant to warn is one thing; one meant to humiliate is another, and only one respects the presumption of innocence.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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