Africa-Press – Mauritius. In a recent newspaper interview, former Senior Chief Executive Asha Burrenchobay talks about the extent to which nepotism, sinecure, over-manning, waste and corruption have become rampant and have contributed to balloon the 2023/24 budget to some Rs 200B.
Given the prevailing situation, couldn’t the administration be run with a 25% budget reduction without compromising the quality of services? Many think it is possible to do so.
To run the colonial administration, the British had recourse to UK-trained locals. (In India, the East India Company recruited top graduates from a select few British universities to run the administration.
) Later, they set up Royal Colleges and other universities manned by qualified British citizens to inculcate European standards among the native recruits. They succeeded in creating in the Indian sub-continent a level of service they copied from British.
Mauritius too had mandarins of the calibre of Simpson and other foreign-trained local talents who excelled during the transition from colonial rule to independent Mauritius.
However, a few decades after independence, the rot started to penetrate the service. With regime change in 1982 the country started witnessing a backsliding of meritocracy in favour of nepotism where merit was thrown out by the window.
Many with top qualifications and who had passed the competitive entry exams with flying colours were side-lined or fired in alleged public interest to be replaced by others for political or ideological reasons.
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