🇲🇺 Public debt tops Rs 683 billion as Moody's waits for proof

Public debt tops Rs 683 billion as Moody's waits for proof

Mauritius owed Rs 683.4 billion at the end of June, more than Rs 22 billion higher than it stood six months earlier, a jump that lands the country's public debt at 88% of everything the economy produces.

Oddly, the burden eased a notch. The ratio slipped from 89% to 88%, because the economy grew a shade faster than the borrowing did. So the pile keeps rising in rupees even as it shrinks slightly against the size of the economy, and Moody's, the credit rating agency, clocked both facts at once.

It kept Mauritius on a negative outlook at Baa3, its lowest investment grade. The agency says it can see early results from the government's belt-tightening; it just wants proof they last. A stable outlook now hinges on one thing: evidence the debt curve bends, and stays bent. Downgrades make every future loan pricier, which is how a rating note nobody reads still reaches an ordinary budget.

The ratio fell and the bill still rose. The second number is the one households feel.

Two officers face the FCC over Rs 30 million found in a raid

Rajcoomar Seewoo, 54, a former assistant superintendent, and Ranjeet Deoojee, 46, an inspector, sat for questioning under warning by the Financial Crimes Commission, the body that polices corruption and money laundering.

The case turns on a search in March last year at Vallee-des-Pretres, where Rs 30 million surfaced, and investigators suspect officers did not seize, move and store the cash by the book on its way into custody. How they handled that money is exactly the sort of detail that decides whether a case survives court. Procedure is the whole case.

Flacq operation nets over 147,000 banned plastic bags

Officers seized more than 147,000 single-use plastic bags in one Flacq operation on Tuesday, a haul described as a record. Banned here for years, these bags keep resurfacing through back door of small importers and wholesalers. Mauritius phased in bans on these plastics well before this seizure, betting that fines and inspections would slowly choke off demand.

The scale this time points to a supply chain, not a stray shipment. Find the source.

Rights body calls the state's same-sex marriage refusal illegal

The National Human Rights Commission has found that the civil status office acted unlawfully when it refused to register a marriage between two people of the same sex. Its opinion does not rewrite the law on its own, it adds official weight to a challenge that has been building for years.

New wetlands bill threatens Rs 10 million fines

A new Wetlands Bill headed to Parliament would let the state fine violators up to Rs 10 million, part of a push to protect what is left of the island's marshes and coastal wetlands. Its backers cast it as a last line of defence for habitats that disappear quietly, one landfill and one permit at a time.

Shorts

Pylon collapses onto a Bell-Village road – A Central Electricity Board pylon fell across Kevin-Vern Street in Bell-Village, and police shut the road.

Tourist, 25, dies in La Prairie seaplane crash – A Polish visitor of 25 died when a seaplane came down on the reef at La Prairie on Tuesday.

Masked men rob Bel-Ombre hotel of Rs 47,000 – Four masked men beat a receptionist and made off with Rs 47,000 at a Bel-Ombre hotel on Monday night.

Rs 18.1 million spent on overseas missions – Official trips abroad cost the state Rs 18.1 million over nineteen months, the finance ministry says.

PM floats a Kreol committee in Parliament – PM Ramgoolam has proposed a select committee on using Kreol morisien in the National Assembly.

Rs 655 million

of VAT has reached the Mauritius Revenue Authority since it lowered the registration threshold, sweeping far more small traders into the tax net in under ten months.

$883 million

could flow to Mali from its mining overhaul, money the finance minister earmarks for energy, water and transport projects.

$7.36 billion

BP booked that as its second-quarter profit, more than double a year before, as the Iran war kept crude prices high for the oil major.

Zimbabwe buries a family killed in Britain

Thousands gathered in Zimbabwe to bury a mother and her two children murdered in Britain, a case that has shaken both countries.

Police arrested the suspect, Zimbabwe-born Ndodana Mkhanyisi Tshuma, in South Africa in July. Prosecutors say he is the husband and father of the very people he is accused of killing. Extradition is the next painful step.

Amnesty warns of anti-migrant vigilantes in South Africa

Amnesty International has urged South Africa to rein in vigilante groups that harass migrants, business owners and whole communities.

DR Congo opens its largest Ebola centre in Bunia

DR Congo is opening its largest Ebola treatment centre in Bunia, as the World Health Organization calls the outbreak's spread exceptional.

Arson arrest in a wildfire that razed 700 buildings

Police have arrested Aaron Farinacci and accuse him of starting the Old Trails Fire near Spokane, Washington. It destroyed roughly 700 buildings and drove 65,000 people from their homes. Whole neighbourhoods, gone.

One man, investigators say, set the whole thing in motion, the cost of a single alleged match will run into the hundreds of millions.

Apple fights a UK order to crack open iCloud

Who gets to read your iCloud backups? Apple is fighting a UK order to build a backdoor into its encrypted data.

Trump blasts Big Oil and demands cheaper petrol

President Trump has lashed out at Big Oil over record profits, demanding that firms like ExxonMobil and Chevron cut pump prices.

Hands off the beached whales, experts warn

Several marine mammals have washed ashore this week, at Les Salines in Port Louis and down south at Le Bouchon. One runs about two metres and 500 kilos, carrying only surface wounds, so specialists want it left in peace rather than hauled back out to sea.

Conservationists suspect the pair at Le Bouchon might be Cuvier's beaked whales, deep divers rarely seen from shore. Give them room.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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