{"id":41310,"date":"2024-09-20T21:21:47","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=41310"},"modified":"2025-03-24T21:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T17:06:12","slug":"the-state-lands-organised-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/the-state-lands-organised-leak\/","title":{"rendered":"The State Land’s Organised Leak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial<\/span><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

Deputy Prime Minister Steven Obeegadoo, who also holds the portfolios of Housing, Land Use Planning, and Tourism, has become the victim of what appears to be an organised leak regarding an application made by his mother, Primerose Obeegadoo, to alter the lease of State land originally held by his father for educational purposes to allow the construction of a home for the elderly. This type of leak is usually orchestrated by individuals or groups within or outside the government to expose what they perceive to be controversial land deals, often implicating politicians, political cronies, or influential figures, and its purpose may be to influence public opinion, create political pressure, or undermine opponents or even party colleagues by revealing perceived favouritism, corruption, or unethical practices related to the distribution or use of state lands.<\/span><\/p>\n

Minister Obeegadoo denies that any special consideration was given to the application and, to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest, he renounced his inheritance rights. He was also absent from the Cabinet meeting that approved the change of purpose for the lease. However, Steven Obeegadoo, along with Alan Ganoo, is a leader of Linite Militant, which, like other potential allies of Pravind Jugnauth, is currently negotiating with the MSM to possibly review the terms of the alliance that brought former MMM figures like Alan Ganoo, Ivan Collendavelloo, and Steven Obeegadoo himself under the MSM-led alliance in the 2019 elections. Finding himself in this predicament at a time when the MSM-Linite Militant negotiations remain unresolved, especially as the MSM leader appears to favour a more productive alliance with his new ally, Xavier Duval\u2019s PMSD, complicates matters for Obeegadoo and Ganoo, who also faces challenges in securing favourable constituencies for his trusted and close party members.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no suggestion that Steven Obeegadoo would be involved in the kind of controversial “transactions” that have made headlines in the past. He asserts that his conscience is clear, yet this embarrassing situation for him personally and in his capacity of leader of Linite Militant once again brings the long-standing State lands saga to the forefront. It is possible that this may not be the last of such controversies, whether real or perceived. Given the persistence of these alleged “transactions” where State lands have been distributed to political cronies, supporters, and close associates of those in power, without any corrective measures by successive governments, the public has come to assume that such questionable practices will continue unchecked.<\/span><\/p>\n

Readers may recall the allegations made by the then-Opposition against the PMSD and the so-called \u201cFestival de la Terre.\u201d Similar accusations were directed at a former Minister of Housing and Lands, whose relative allegedly sold lease rights over a plot of State land to Chinese investors with the minister’s approval. A more recent case that garnered attention involved the ‘Black Label Stag Party,’ reportedly held to celebrate a deal concerning hundreds of acres of State land near Grand Bassin, in which bribe money was allegedly exchanged. These allegations contribute to the perception that political cronies, financiers, and even family members are covertly assisted in acquiring State land. Such accusations have been made against successive governments, typically by the Opposition. Once in power, this Opposition faces similar allegations from the newly displaced government. Yet, no concrete actions have been taken to put an end to these practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is striking and frustrating for the thousands of citizens who care about the country and its limited resources is that despite the many controversies surrounding the allocation of State land over the years, there is no guarantee that a transparent mechanism will be introduced to prevent every such deal from being tainted by corruption. Transparency should clearly be the reasonable course to follow. <\/span><\/p>\n

Economists and other experts argue that it is not the role of governments to make decisions regarding the allocation of commercial public property to individuals. Governments should establish broad policies about which State lands can be allocated and under what conditions, and their role should end there. It is clearly inadvisable to allow the current state of affairs to persist, as these secretive deals do not serve the interests of the people at large. It would be regrettable if the Opposition Alliance, which is campaigning on a platform of ‘Changement,’ were to let the people down on this front should it be elected to power next time around.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 20 September 2024<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Editorial.jpg?fit=900%2C526&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-aKi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42745,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41310\/revisions\/42745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}