🇲🇺 A 50% household water hike floated as the state loses Rs 10 a cubic metre

A 50% household water hike floated as the state loses Rs 10 a cubic metre

Shiam Thannoo, the head of the Central Water Authority (CWA), went on television on Friday night and said a figure no household wants to hear: a water tariff perhaps 50% higher. He added, quickly, that no such rise is under study right now, domestic rates stay frozen. The figure is loose now.

The arithmetic is blunt. Producing a cubic metre of drinkable water costs the CWA around Rs 24, and the authority sells that same cubic metre for roughly Rs 14. Tariffs had not seen a major revision since 2012, even as the CWA keeps paying to treat, pump and distribute every drop in the system.

For now the squeeze lands on business, not homes. A revision that took effect on 1 September lifted rates for shops, firms and industry, while households were left alone. Thannoo's pitch: the utility needs the means to mend a network that leaks away much of what it makes. A body losing that much water has a revenue problem and a plumbing problem, and only one of the two gets solved by charging people more.

Charging more for water the network never delivers fixes the books, not the pipes.

Mauritius opens its first real adoption overhaul to public comment

Two draft laws, the Child Adoption Bill and an amendment to the Civil Code, are open for public comment until 6 November, the first real attempt in years to rewrite how Mauritius handles adoption.

Aneeta Ghoorah, the Ombudsperson for Children, backs clearer rules and proper follow-up before and after a placement, but attaches one condition: adoption must serve the child's best interest, not an adult's wish to become a parent. The NGO Safire says protection starts earlier, with help for families under strain. As Magali Freyneau puts it, poverty must not be mistaken for a voluntary abandonment.

253 home solar systems sit dead, most killed by failed inverters

253 rooftop solar systems set up under the Central Electricity Board (CEB) are sitting idle, and 191 of them come down to one culprit: a failed inverter, the box that turns panel output into current a home can use. For a household that signed up to shave its bill and sell power back to the grid, a dead inverter means roof full of panels earning nothing. Who pays to revive them, the owner or the scheme that sold the promise, is the part the parliamentary figures leave out.

Rs 53.5m set aside to kit out frontline officers

The Mauritius Police Force has set aside Rs 53.5 million to equip officers on the front line, the ones first through the door at an incident or a crowd. Spent well, it buys protection and a quicker response; spent on the wrong kit, it becomes a line nobody audits. What matters is how much of it reaches the street.

Two who fled a Rivière-des-Anguilles cell are back behind bars

Two detainees who slipped out of the Rivière-des-Anguilles police station on Saturday evening did not enjoy their freedom for long. Both were tracked down and returned to custody inside the day. A police cell that cannot hold the people already inside it is its own small scandal, the kind quietly filed under things that should not happen.

Shorts

Hunt is on for 1.5 tonnes of Thai cannabis – An 18th suspect is now held as officers hunt the missing shipment of 1.5 tonnes from Thailand.

Madagascar wants Shemir Sokataly sent home – Held on an international arrest warrant, Sokataly may be handed over to Madagascar.

Air Mauritius eyes a return to Heathrow – The airline is weighing a comeback to London's main hub, years after it walked away.

Tanzania studies how Mauritius fights graft – A visiting delegation wants to copy how the island fights corruption.

La Nicolière reservoir set to grow sixfold – A new project would lift the reservoir's storage sixfold, a buffer against dry summers.

Upcoming Events

Sat 7 Nov · Mahogany Car Boot Sale
8am to 1pm at Mahogany Promenade

Sat 14 Nov · NASA Space Apps Challenge
2 days · Rajiv Gandhi Science Center

Thu 19 Nov · ThirdThursday Networking
9:30am to 11:30am at Middlesex Uni

Rs 607,750

raised at one charity golf day for palliative care, proof a small cause can still fill a scorecard.

Rs 74.8 million

of feed subsidies has reached livestock breeders since January 2025, the state quietly propping up the price of your milk and meat.

£5 billion

of financing capacity now links Mauritius and the United Kingdom to back investment between the two, a sizeable bet on that corridor.

Africa is richer and less free, says the Mo Ibrahim scorecard

The latest Mo Ibrahim Foundation report, the main scorecard for how African states are governed, lands on a split screen. Over the past decade the continent have gained on economic opportunity and human development, the stuff that turns up in wages and schooling.

It has slid, and slid hard, on security, rights and the rule of law. The foundation's shorthand for that drift is an era of strongmen, where power pools at the top and the checks on it wear thin.

The Games open on African soil for the first time

Dakar lit the cauldron on the first Olympic event ever staged in Africa, as the Youth Games opened across Senegal.

Pride fills the streets of Sandton

Hundreds packed Sandton for South Africa's Pride parade, one of the continent's largest, loud and unmissable on a cautious map.

Germany's streets fill as a revolt over prices spreads

34 German cities saw crowds fill the streets this week, a Gen Z revolt over the cost of living that spread north from France. Most of it stayed peaceful.

Frankfurt was the exception, with shops looted and crowds clashing with police. The grievance travels easily: wages that sit still while rent and food climb. When Germany takes to the streets over prices, the mood is not a local one.

Can Rahul Gandhi's crowd force out the election chief?

Thousands rallied in New Delhi behind Rahul Gandhi, demanding the election chief resign over redrawn voter rolls.

Oleshky's evacuees reunite across the border

Evacuees from Oleshky, a town under Russian control, reunited with relatives in Belarus under a US-backed ceasefire.

A new spider turns up where no spider should live

On a rocky shore of Île aux Vacoas, a small islet off Grand Port, a headlamp caught a spider's legs poking from a burrow. Dr Max Tercel of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust says he was completely stupefied, having only met it in lush forest, not on a coast the tide swallows.

It is a new species, the Mauritian tidal trapdoor spider, and it keeps house in a burrow that floods twice a day.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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