Africa-Press – Mauritius. Saving the earth from all poisoning: this is one of the missions of the Indian mystic Sadhguru who traveled the world tirelessly last year. First, in India, he draws attention to the need to revive a land exhausted by industrial agriculture and the quality of agricultural products which is affected, in particular a vitamin deficiency.
If the nourishing earth demands to breathe, it is also due to massive constructions, a predatory phenomenon swallowing up more and more land. Here, fertile land disappears according to the appetite of investors who have sensed in time the financial windfall that will result from it.
At the head of the pack, sugar estates disenchanted by the decreasing profitability of sugar cane. The starting signal was given in 2003. The great real estate adventure could begin, promotion and sales agencies sprouted like mushrooms.
According to the economic logic of profitability, others were quick to seize the opportunity offered by a promising sector. An in-depth investigation by the private press would be able to enlighten the public on the long-term benefits of the gains for the state coffers through the taxes on these sales and rentals of luxury residences across the island.
Hoping that the press will stick its nose into this type of investigation, would that be wishful thinking? The excitement of advertising on a private radio for the future stores of a major French brand – which will come out of the fertile lands of the sugar estates – did not provoke any reaction in the newspapers which, usually, have an opinion on everything which affects the economy and ensure that the land is used wisely.
The indignation varies according to the identity of the group of investors, and clearly, the French brand taken over by the locals has the virtue of silencing the most talkative behind the microphone and the screen of their computer.
The multiple investments of certain groups demonstrate their good financial health. A report on the amount of rent faced by medium-sized supermarket businesses in shopping centers would also be necessary to understand the balance of power in this sector.
We dare not publish, here, the rent that has been communicated to us by third parties in a specific case as the sum seems exorbitant and explains why the groups who risk it end up packing up.
Those who have turned the page on the cane are also shying away from the manufacturing plants they helped set up, perhaps due to fluctuating profitability and staffing concerns.
Mauritians with an average budget have entered the lucrative real estate market, which has the disadvantage of being. . . immobile. Concrete does not move as we wish and it cannot be eaten either.
There is a lack of housing for the locals and those who have enlarged their real estate assets in their yard or by aiming for more are assured of a comfortable income at the end of the month.
Small, medium or large real estate assets, the country has become a paradise for rentiers. Mother earth, as advocated by Sadhguru, has devout followers who are attached to agriculture and try to pollute the earth as little as possible.
. To believe that we must strip the rich to clothe the poor is an illusion. It would be more reasonable to raise the bottom to the top rather than the opposite. Ideologues and writers will spare us their binary vision of pitting the poor against the rich, tin huts against luxury villas.
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