🇲🇺 Food imports hit Rs 40.55 billion in just eight months

Food imports hit Rs 40.55 billion in just eight months

Mauritius brought in Rs 40.55 billion of food between January and August, and the bill will not sit still. Since 2019 it has climbed 71.2%, from Rs 35.82 billion to Rs 61.34 billion a year. The total for those eight months alone is up Rs 1.51 billion, or 3.8%, on the same stretch of 2025.

Importer Dawood Jhurry blames a stack of pressures at once. "The rupee is slipping and sea freight has sometimes doubled, tripled, even quadrupled on some routes because of the Middle East," he says. Dearer fuel lifts shipping costs, and suppliers facing pricier raw materials pass the increase straight down the chain.

Some suppliers are now holding leaner stocks to ride out the uncertainty, which can thin the shelves well before it shows on a price tag. For a household the figure that bites is not the 71% on the national ledger. It is the extra few rupees on rice, oil and tinned fish every week.

Freight rates and the rupee do most of the damage here, so the cure sits well beyond any shopper's trolley.

Teeluckdharry asks the Supreme Court to block a defence pact with Washington

Sanjeev Teeluckdharry, lawyer and leader of the Congrès Citoyen Mauricien, has asked the Supreme Court to stop the government signing the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement, a deal letting American and Mauritian forces supply each other with logistics and services.

In an affidavit he argues the pact chips at national sovereignty, citing Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution. Cabinet approved it in May, yet it sat in no manifesto and faced no public debate, he says. He also wants to know what American troops might do on the island, surveillance included.

Twenty fruit and veg samples carried pesticides that should not be there

Twenty samples of fruit and vegetables came back carrying pesticides not approved for them, and the finding has put the Pesticides Act back under the microscope. Agro-industry minister Arvin Boolell said enforcement had slipped under the previous government, and laid out a fix drawn up with the Attorney General: a QR code to trace every imported chemical, awareness drives for planters and sellers, and sharper tools for inspectors on the ground.

Social security offices open three weekends for pension claims

Planning to claim the State Age Pension from January 2027? The Ministry of Social Security will open on three weekends so you can file in person without losing a weekday. It is the universal pension paid to older residents, and the extra counter hours are there to clear the queue before the deadline.

Officer barred from duty is caught with 691g of cannabis

Police arrested constable Bhavish Nazeer, already barred from his duties, with 691 grams of cannabis at Résidences Kennedy on Monday, and detained two suspected accomplices. A police officer caught shifting the very drug his own force is paid to seize is exactly the headline the top brass dreads.

Shorts

University student hurt in Rose-Hill clash – A campus row between two students ended with one bleeding from a telescopic baton blow to the head.

Police probe a video abusing a young girl – Mother files a complaint as the deputy prime minister urges people to stop sharing the clip of a young girl.

Watering a median strip in a drought – As taps run dry, residents want to know who is hosing a bypass median strip at Flic-en-Flac, and with what water.

Jugnauth calls the wiretap claim false – Pravind Jugnauth brands the police account of listening devices a falsehood and says he will answer in court.

Rs 1.24m seized in an illegal betting raid – Gaming police walked out with Rs 1.24 million from the house of a man of 69 suspected of running illegal bets.

Upcoming Events

Sat 31 Oct · Bagatelle Car Boot Sale (Bagatelle Mall)
9am to 2pm at the Decathlon parking lot.

Sat 7 Nov · Mahogany Car Boot Sale (Mahogany Mall)
8am to 1pm at Mahogany Shopping Promenade.

Sat 14 Nov – Sun 15 Nov · NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026 (Port Louis)
In-person hackathon at Rajiv Gandhi Science Center. No coding experience needed.

Thu 19 Nov · ThirdThursday Networking Event (Flic-en-Flac)
Professional networking event at Middlesex University, from 9:30am to 11:30am.

130,000

Mauritians are counted below the poverty line, a tally put to Parliament this week that works out to roughly one of every ten people on the island.

$2.5m

goes to the victims of former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh, raised by selling the mansion he built; prosecutors tie him to murders, disappearances and torture across 22 years of rule.

3.5%

is Britain's inflation rate, an 11-month high driven by fuel costs and enough to revive talk of a Bank of England rate rise next month.

South Africa cuts fuel levies by R10 billion to ease pump prices

South Africa is leaning on its own budget to take the sting out of record pump prices, cutting fuel levies by about R10 billion. Drivers and commuters have watched petrol climb for months, and the relief lands as household budgets stretch thin.

It is the kind of move Mauritian motorists can only envy while local fuel bill keeps feeding the island's import deficit.

Drone strike on an Abyei market kills at least 153

A drone strike on a crowded market in the disputed Abyei region killed at least 153 people, with Sudan's military accused and the United Nations condemning the attack.

Nigeria confirms its first Ebola case

Nigeria has confirmed its first Ebola case, a diplomat who flew into Abuja from Uganda, and health teams are now racing to trace his contacts.

Russia frees an American as US envoy meets Putin on Ukraine

Russia has freed Stephen Hubbard, a retired American teacher jailed on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, as US envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with President Putin. Witkoff also met President Zelenskyy to push a set of peace proposals.

A prisoner release during live talks is a goodwill gesture, whether it survives contact with the actual map of the war is another matter.

France widens curfews and floods cities with police

France is extending curfews and surging police onto city streets after nights of rioting and looting, with the tourism trade now worried about the pictures travelling worldwide.

Brazil orders Meta to prove it treats Lula and Bolsonaro equally

Brazil's top electoral court has ordered Meta to show it gave Lula and Bolsonaro equal treatment, after claims its algorithm tilted the race before the runoff.

One man keeps buying up Africa's oil backbone

Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest industrialist, has bought a stake in Kenya's oil pipeline network, only weeks after breaking ground on a refinery at the Kenyan port of Lamu.

He already runs one of the world's biggest refineries back home near Lagos. Piece by piece, the man who built an empire in cement is wiring himself into how the continent moves its fuel.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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