Africa-Press – Mauritius. Sudheer Maudhoo has drawn the wrath of Sudesh Lallchand. In question: the minister would have accused him of abuse of power, of embezzlement, among others, within the Mauritius Shipping Corporation Ltd.
This is firmly denied by the member of the Mauritian Rally, who served him a formal notice. He was displeased by comments made by Fisheries Minister Sudheer Maudhoo at a press conference on September 4.
Sudesh Lallchand, senior leader of the Rassemblement Mauricien and member of the Esperance Accord’s economy and finance committee, served the latter with a formal notice on Thursday. Through his lawyer, Me Kaviraj Bokhoree, he is claiming Rs 25 million from Minister Maudhoo.
What does he blame the minister for? According to the complainant, Sudheer Maudhoo had made a series of “false, disparaging and derogatory” allegations with the sole purpose of “attacking him and damaging his image, his credibility, his integrity, his honor and his professionalism.
” He indicates that the Minister had claimed that he had notably abused his position as Chairman of the Mauritius Shipping Corporation Ltd (MCSL) while he was in office from February 2015 to November 2019; that he had abused / or misappropriated the assets and funds of the organization; that he used his position as president to engage in illegal activities and manipulate MCSL accounts.
Sudesh Lallchand points out that he has never abused his position or abused the funds and assets of the organization. Another criticism of Minister Maudhoo against him concerns the remuneration he had received.
Sudesh Lallchand explains that it was a pittance that was paid to him. He insists that if external consultants had been recruited for the MCSL restructuring exercise in 2015, it would have cost between Rs 50 and Rs 100 million.
The former Chairman explains that when he took the reins of the organization, MCSL’s audited financial results were “catastrophic” and amounted to approximately Rs 284 million in losses.
They are as follows: Rs 43 million in 2009, Rs 51 million in 2010, Rs 50 million in 2011, Rs 85 million in 2012, Rs 55 million in 2013-2014. In addition, MCSL had accumulated several hundred million rupees in debts and liabilities.
She was facing bankruptcy and insolvency and had serious difficulty purchasing food supplies for sailors and crew members. Suddenly, in February 2015, the board of directors of MCSL, which was reconstituted under his chairmanship, was mandated to carry out a profound restructuring of the company to make it financially sound and profitable.
With his technical and professional skills and his experience in the maritime, logistics, financial and restructuring fields, he was assigned the responsibility by MCSL to lead and manage the restructuring project which consisted of two parts.
The first was to present a restructuring plan that he submitted at the end of 2015 that required six months of work, and the second to put the plan in place in several stages. According to Sudesh Lallchand, this plan was put into operation from 2015 to 2019 in various stages.
The company started to become profitable with Rs 52 million for the financial year of 2015, Rs 104 million in 2016, Rs 124 million in 2017, Rs 175 million in 2018 and 230 million in 2019.
The former Chairman says that when he left MCSL in November 2019, the company had an “exceptionally solid financial position with cash reserves of circa Rs 900 million in its bank accounts, no outstanding bank loans”.
