MU-E-02: The Ramgoolam Government Year One — The Fiscal Audit, the State-Asset Review, the FCC Anti-Corruption Track, and the Chagos Treaty Ratification (November 2024 – May 2026)

1. Key Takeaways

• The Navin Ramgoolam third premiership was sworn in on 13 November 2024 at State House, Le Réduit, before President Prithvirajsing Roopun. The Cabinet — finalised through 13 and 14 November and adjusted in early 2025 — was constructed around the Alliance du Changement's four constituent components (the Labour Party, the Mauritian Militant Movement, the Nouveaux Démocrates, and the Reform Party). Paul Bérenger took a Senior Minister role with the Defence and Home Affairs portfolios under a coalition seniority arrangement; Dhananjay Ramful took Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade (appointed 22 November 2024), with Dr Arvin Boolell taking the Agro-Industry and Blue Economy cluster; Reza Uteem took Finance, Economic Planning and Development; Dr Avinaash Munohur and other MMM-aligned ministers took selected technical portfolios. [TBD-VERIFY: the precise allocation of Defence vs Home Affairs to Bérenger and the timing of any partial portfolio re-allocation in light of Paul Bérenger's age and health considerations through 2025 — Mauritian press has reported episodic re-balancing.]

• The Government Programme presented to the Eighth Parliament in late November 2024 committed to four organising verticals: institutional integrity (the conversion of the Independent Commission Against Corruption to the Financial Crimes Commission, the Freedom of Information Act, the Director of Public Prosecutions reform, the prosecution-authority separation); fiscal-and-monetary repair (the Mauritius Investment Corporation forensic audit, the Bank of Mauritius Act amendments to re-separate monetary and fiscal operations, the Pravind Jugnauth-era contracts review, the debt-to-GDP stabilisation); the Chagos Treaty completion and the broader sovereignty framework (the post-3 October 2024 Joint Statement renegotiation, the May 2025 Treaty signing, the ratification); and the social-and-economic-inclusion programme (the Contribution Sociale Généralisée and pension financing, the Rodrigues and Agaléga arrangements, the civil-service reform, the education-curriculum updates).

• The Mauritius Investment Corporation (MIC) — established in 2020 as a special-purpose vehicle of the Bank of Mauritius to administer the controversial MUR 60 billion (USD ~1.5 billion at then-exchange-rates) transfer to support post-COVID enterprise rescue and equity investments — was the principal fiscal-monetary inheritance from the prior government. The post-November 2024 forensic-audit commissioned by the Ramgoolam Government (with international-advisory support) found, in interim reporting through 2025, a portfolio of assets of variable performance, several investments characterised by procedural deficiencies in due-diligence and pricing, and contingent liabilities of [TBD-VERIFY: the specific MUR figure of contingent liabilities and unrecoverable investments; press reporting has suggested figures in the MUR 8–15 billion range but the Auditor-General's final findings have not been fully published as of mid-2026]. The MIC restructuring programme through 2025–2026 has involved the wind-down of selected investment positions, the recovery of provable mis-allocations, and the institutional separation of the MIC from Bank of Mauritius operational control.

• The four signature contracts under Pravind Jugnauth-era review have been: (i) the Safe City CCTV contract operated through Mauritius Telecom in partnership with Larsen & Toubro for the deployment of approximately 4,000 CCTV cameras at a contract value reported in the MUR 19 billion range; (ii) the MV Wakashio insurance and compensation settlement framework arising from the 25 July – 6 August 2020 grounding and oil spill, with the Japanese-owned vessel's insurance and the Japanese government's settlement negotiations producing payments under contestation; (iii) the Côte d'Or sports complex including the National Sports Complex and the Côte d'Or City urban-redevelopment programme, the value of which was reported in the MUR 5–7 billion range with selected sub-contracts under audit review; (iv) the Metro Express Phase 4 extension, the planned extension of the Curepipe–Port Louis light-rail to selected new termini under further Indian Line of Credit financing. [TBD-VERIFY: the specific contractual values quoted in MUR billion terms; the National Audit Office and the FCC's reporting on each of the four review tracks has been incremental through 2025 and 2026.]

• The Reza Uteem June 2025 Budget — A New Chapter for Mauritius — was the new Government's first full fiscal statement, delivered to the National Assembly on or about 5 June 2025. The Budget set: a deficit-to-GDP target on a multi-year glide-path toward approximately 4 per cent of GDP in FY 2025/26, with a medium-term anchor of approximately 3 per cent; revenue measures including selected adjustments to the Contribution Sociale Généralisée (CSG) financing of pensions, the corporate tax framework, and selected indirect-tax measures; public-investment allocations prioritising water-supply infrastructure, energy-transition projects, and selected social-housing programmes; and a public-debt-to-GDP stabilisation target. The post-Budget political reception was mixed: the trade-union movement contested specific CSG adjustments; the business community largely endorsed the fiscal-consolidation framework; the IMF Article IV concluding statement of May 2025 had pre-positioned the Budget as broadly consistent with the post-COVID consolidation trajectory.

• The sovereign-debt trajectory is the central macro-fiscal question. Public debt-to-GDP at the November 2024 transition was approximately 75 per cent, having declined from the post-COVID peak of approximately 90 per cent in 2020/21 through the post-pandemic recovery period. The Ramgoolam Government's medium-term target is to stabilise debt-to-GDP in the 65–70 per cent range over a multi-year horizon. The principal vulnerabilities are: external-debt-financing-cost trajectory under the post-2024 global interest-rate environment; the contingent liabilities of state-owned enterprises and the MIC; the parastatal-sector financial position; the climate-related contingent liability under cyclone exposure. [TBD-VERIFY: the exact debt-to-GDP figure for end-FY2024/25 from the Ministry of Finance publication; press reporting has suggested figures in the 73–77 per cent range.]

• The FATF and EU AML re-listing risk has been a continuing institutional concern through 2024–2026. Mauritius was on the FATF "grey list" of jurisdictions under increased monitoring from February 2020 through October 2021, and on the EU AML high-risk third-country list correspondingly. The 2021 exit was a substantial institutional achievement under the prior government. The post-2024 ESAAMLG mutual-evaluation cycle, the FCC institutional transition, and the broader AML/CFT framework adjustments have been the subject of continuing engagement with international assessors. The post-November 2024 Government's position is that the ICAC-to-FCC conversion strengthens (not weakens) AML/CFT institutional capacity; the contested-record on this question is engaged in Section 9. [TBD-VERIFY: the specific status of the post-2024 ESAAMLG mutual-evaluation cycle and any FATF International Cooperation Review Group engagement; the Mauritian authorities have publicly affirmed institutional commitment but the formal assessments are on a multi-year cycle.]

• The Bank of Mauritius reforms — the Bank of Mauritius (Amendment) Act 2025, or the equivalent — were tabled to re-establish the separation of monetary-policy operations from fiscal-quasi-fiscal operations that had been blurred through the 2020–2021 MIC transfer. The Governor transition through 2025 — the post-Harvesh Seegolam appointment of the post-November 2024 Governor — has been a substantive personnel transition. [TBD-VERIFY: the specific name and the appointment date of the post-November 2024 Bank of Mauritius Governor; the November 2024 to mid-2025 period included transitional governance arrangements and the appointment process was the subject of selected Mauritian press reporting.] The monetary-policy framework through 2025 has continued the inflation-targeting trajectory with the policy rate adjusted in line with the disinflation path; headline inflation in late 2025 was reported in the 3–4 per cent range.

• The Independent Commission Against Corruption was formally dissolved and the Financial Crimes Commission established under the Financial Crimes Commission Act (as amended through 2024–2025), with operational transition through 2024 and 2025. The FCC's institutional architecture provides for a Director-General appointed under more independent procedures than the prior ICAC arrangement, an expanded mandate covering financial crime including bribery, money laundering, terrorism financing, and selected economic crime, and operational integration with the Financial Intelligence Unit and the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The Vinod Boolell Commission of Inquiry — established in 2025 under retired Supreme Court Judge Vinod Boolell — has been tasked with the investigation of Pravind Jugnauth-era institutional conduct including procurement, the Wakashio response, and selected security-and-intelligence operational practices. The Commission's interim reporting through 2025–2026 has been substantive but the final report is not yet published as of mid-2026.

• The 22 May 2025 Diego Garcia Treaty was signed in Port Louis between UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Mauritian Foreign Minister Dhananjay Ramful, completing the framework articulated in the 3 October 2024 Joint Statement (covered in detail in MU-E-01 and MU-E-03). The Treaty ratification process in the Mauritian National Assembly proceeded through mid-2025 with substantive majority support across the Alliance du Changement, with the residual MSM opposition contesting selected provisions. The UK House of Commons CRAG laying procedure produced contested debates through mid-2025. The continuing India-Mauritius defence cooperation under the Ramgoolam Government — including the Agaléga airstrip and jetty operational activity — has continued without substantial deviation from the prior trajectory, and the UK-base payments structure under the Treaty has begun the operational implementation. The Chagossian Trust Fund's first disbursements through late 2025 have been the subject of continuing Chagos Refugees Group engagement.

• The contested record on the first year structures three accounts. First, on whether the Ramgoolam Government is a material reset or an accountability-spectacle theatre: the Alliance du Changement positions the year as a reset; the MSM-opposition characterises selected actions (the Boolell Inquiry, the FCC, the contracts reviews) as politicised retribution; the civil-society and academic readings are mixed but largely sympathetic to the institutional-reform direction while reserving judgment on durability. Second, on whether the FCC is genuine anti-corruption reform or politicised replacement of the ICAC: the Government position is the former, the MSM and selected critical commentary the latter, and the Transparency International Mauritius and broader civil-society reading is provisionally sympathetic but conditional on early FCC case-management outcomes. Third, on whether the Diego Garcia Treaty is a sovereignty win or a compromise: the Ramgoolam Government and the Mauritian-establishment reading is the former; the Chagos Refugees Group reading is the latter; the UK-strategic reading is contested between Labour-Government endorsement and Conservative-and-Reform critique.

2. The November 2024 Transition and the Cabinet Architecture

2.1 The Swearing-In Sequence

Navin Ramgoolam took the oath of office as Prime Minister on 13 November 2024 at State House, Le Réduit, before President Prithvirajsing Roopun. The oath was administered under the constitutional procedure of Section 59 of the 1968 Constitution. The brief ceremony, attended by the President, the outgoing Prime Minister's representatives, the diplomatic corps, the leadership of the four Alliance du Changement constituent parties, and selected members of the Chagossian community in attendance, was conducted with a markedly different tone from the 2014 swearing-in (which had followed the prior Ramgoolam defeat). The Prime Minister's first public statement, delivered immediately after the oath, committed the Government to "a new political culture" — language that would recur through the manifesto and the Government Programme.

The Cabinet was sworn in across 13 and 14 November 2024, in two principal sittings. The Alliance du Changement's four-party coalition composition required negotiated portfolio allocation across the four constituent parties. The Labour Party (PTr) — the largest coalition component and the principal vehicle of the Ramgoolam premiership — retained the Prime Minister's office and the principal economic portfolios. The Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM) — Paul Bérenger's party and the second-largest coalition component — secured the Senior Minister role for Bérenger and selected technical portfolios for MMM-aligned ministers. The Nouveaux Démocrates (ND) under Roshi Bhadain and the Reform Party under various smaller-party leaderships secured selected portfolios consistent with their coalition-bargaining position. The cabinet's communal-and-gender composition was the subject of substantial post-swearing-in commentary; female-minister representation was reported as exceeding the prior administration's figures.

2.2 The Cabinet Composition

The principal Cabinet positions through November–December 2024 were:

• Prime Minister and Minister of Defence (in the initial allocation): Navin Ramgoolam (PTr). [TBD-VERIFY: the PM's specific portfolio holdings beyond the Prime Minister's office — Mauritian convention permits the PM to hold additional portfolios, and the November 2024 announcement was the subject of selected press attention.]
• Senior Minister with the Defence, Home Affairs, and selected national-security portfolios: Paul Bérenger (MMM). [TBD-VERIFY: the precise allocation of Defence vs Home Affairs and the timing of any partial portfolio re-allocation. Paul Bérenger, born 1945, has been the subject of episodic health-and-stamina considerations in Mauritian commentary; the November 2024 allocation may have been adjusted through 2025.]
• Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade: Dhananjay Ramful (PTr), appointed 22 November 2024 (verified via fetched source in the Tier-1 audit; Dr Arvin Boolell holds the Agro-Industry and Blue Economy portfolio).
• Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development: Reza Uteem (MMM). The Finance portfolio's allocation to the MMM was a meaningful coalition-bargaining outcome; Reza Uteem, a senior MMM lawyer-and-parliamentarian, delivered the June 2025 Budget Speech.
• Other notable portfolio allocations included: Dr Avinaash Munohur (MMM) in a technical portfolio (variously reported as ICT or related); Patrick Assirvaden (PTr) in Energy and Public Utilities; Anil Bachoo (PTr) in selected infrastructure portfolios; Rajesh Bhagwan (MMM) in selected portfolios; and selected ND and Reform-Party ministers in the remaining allocations. [TBD-VERIFY: the full list of Cabinet members and portfolio designations beyond the principal positions named; the November–December 2024 announcement was made in stages and was the subject of selected modifications through early 2025.]

The Cabinet's institutional-tone was distinct from the predecessor configuration in three respects: the higher number of MMM-aligned senior ministers (a coalition-arithmetic consequence); the institutional emphasis on technical-and-professional competencies in selected portfolios (in line with the Alliance du Changement manifesto's institutional-integrity framing); and the explicit gender-representation increase. The Speaker of the National Assembly under the post-November 2024 Parliament — selected by the Alliance du Changement majority — was [TBD-VERIFY: specific Speaker name; the Eighth Parliament's Speaker election was conducted in late November 2024 with the Alliance du Changement majority producing the standard parliamentary outcome].

2.3 The First-Quarter Legislative Sequence

The first-quarter legislative sequence through November 2024 – February 2025 included several significant items. The Financial Crimes Commission Act (the institutional vehicle for the ICAC-to-FCC conversion) had been enacted under the prior administration in 2023 but the operational transition was the subject of post-November 2024 amendment and implementation; the post-November 2024 Government tabled amendments to strengthen institutional independence and to align the FCC's operational architecture with the new Government's integrity framing. The Information and Communication Technologies Act amendments (constraining the social-media-suspension powers that had been exercised in the November 2024 election period) were tabled. The Mauritius Investment Corporation review framework was tabled, providing the statutory basis for the forensic audit. The Vinod Boolell Commission of Inquiry was established under the Commissions of Inquiry Act through 2025. The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission revival was announced.

The Government Programme (the equivalent of the Throne Speech) was delivered to the National Assembly in late November 2024. The Government Programme articulated the Alliance du Changement's principal commitments and provided the policy framework for the first-year legislative-and-administrative sequence. The Government Programme committed to: institutional-integrity reforms; fiscal-and-monetary repair; the Chagos Treaty completion; the social-and-economic-inclusion programme; and selected sectoral commitments on renewable energy, education, and Rodrigues-and-Agaléga arrangements.

2.4 The 20 March 2026 Bérenger Resignation and the Finance-Portfolio Rupture

The coalition-seniority arrangement documented in Section 2.2 broke in March 2026. On 20 March 2026, Paul Bérenger announced his resignation as Deputy Prime Minister and Senior Minister, telling a press conference that the decision followed a direct conversation with Prime Minister Ramgoolam the day before. Bérenger's stated grounds were threefold: the Government's failure, sixteen months into the term, to appoint a stand-alone Minister of Finance — the finance portfolio having in practice been retained by the Prime Minister himself rather than delegated to a dedicated minister — a state of affairs Bérenger said left fiscal policy without adequate ministerial ownership; the Government's failure to deliver on selected Alliance du Changement campaign pledges; and Bérenger's assessment that his own repeated warnings on the fiscal and external-rating trajectory had gone unheeded, including the risk of a Moody's downgrade from Baa3 to sub-investment grade and the risk of Mauritius's inclusion on the ESAAMLG/regional anti-money-laundering grey list (Section 7.4). Multiple outlets (Bloomberg, TimesLive, Daily Nation, Eastleigh Voice) corroborated both the announcement and Bérenger's stated reasoning [TBD-VERIFY: the precise post-March-2026 disposition of the Defence and Home Affairs portfolios Bérenger had held, and whether the Deputy Prime Minister office was refilled or left vacant — Mauritius Times reporting through mid-2026 posed the question "the office should not remain vacant indefinitely" without confirming a successor as of the FCC/E-02 update window].

Bérenger's resignation did not collapse the Ramgoolam Government; the Alliance du Changement's parliamentary majority (60 of 62 elected seats at the 2024 election) was undisturbed, and the MMM's continuing participation in the coalition below Bérenger's own departure was not, on the public record as of August 2026, itself in question [TBD-VERIFY: whether other MMM ministers resigned or were reallocated in the aftermath, and the MMM's institutional position within the coalition following its leader's departure from Government]. The episode is nonetheless significant for this document's Year-One-and-after record on two counts: it confirms, from a coalition-partner inside the Cabinet, that the finance-portfolio arrangement recorded provisionally in Section 2.2 (Reza Uteem as Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development) had by 2026 been superseded by an arrangement in which the Prime Minister held the finance function directly without a dedicated Finance Minister in place [TBD-VERIFY: the exact date and mechanics of this portfolio change, and Reza Uteem's post-change portfolio — press references place Uteem at Labour and Industrial Relations by 2026, but the corpus has not independently confirmed the transition sequence]; and it is the first senior ministerial resignation of the Ramgoolam-III term, testing directly the "durable institutional reset versus accountability theatre" framing of Section 13.1 from an unexpected direction — a coalition-partner's public break over fiscal-governance substance rather than an opposition critique of anti-corruption politics.

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3. The Inherited Macroeconomic and Fiscal Position

3.1 The Headline Macroeconomic Position

The macroeconomic position inherited by the Ramgoolam Government in November 2024 was characterised by post-COVID recovery achievement on the demand side and continuing institutional-fiscal vulnerabilities on the policy-architecture side. The principal indicators at the November 2024 transition:

• Real GDP growth of approximately 6.5 per cent in calendar 2023 and approximately 4.6 per cent projected for calendar 2024 (Statistics Mauritius; IMF Article IV Staff Report).
• Headline CPI inflation of approximately 3.6 per cent year-on-year in October 2024, having declined from the post-Ukraine-invasion peak of approximately 12.2 per cent in July 2022 through the 2022–2024 disinflation cycle.
• Mauritian rupee in the MUR 45–47 per US dollar range at end-2024, having depreciated from approximately MUR 40 per dollar at end-2020 through the post-COVID rupee adjustment.
• Gross international reserves of approximately USD 8.0 billion at end-2024, equivalent to approximately 10 months of import cover — a substantial reserve-adequacy position.
• Public debt-to-GDP of approximately 75 per cent at end-FY2023/24, having declined from the post-COVID peak of approximately 90 per cent in FY2020/21 through the post-pandemic recovery.
• Headline fiscal deficit-to-GDP of approximately 4–5 per cent in FY2023/24, with the medium-term target trajectory in the 3–4 per cent range.

The IMF Article IV Staff Report (Country Report 24/256, August 2024) had documented the post-COVID recovery as considerably delivered and had flagged the principal forward vulnerabilities: the MIC contingent-liability position; the parastatal-sector financial position; the climate-related contingent liability under cyclone exposure; the FATF/EU AML re-listing trajectory.

3.2 The Sectoral Composition

The sectoral composition of the Mauritian economy at the November 2024 transition reflected the longer-arc structural adjustment from sugar-and-textile dominance through to the post-1990s services orientation. The principal sectoral shares of GDP (approximate, 2023): financial-and-business services approximately 22 per cent; tourism (lodging, catering, and related) approximately 9 per cent; manufacturing (including textile, sugar processing, and food) approximately 12 per cent; construction approximately 7 per cent; ICT-and-business-process services approximately 6–7 per cent; agriculture-and-fisheries approximately 3 per cent; the balance distributed across trade, transport, public administration, and other services. [TBD-VERIFY: the exact 2023 sectoral-share figures from Statistics Mauritius National Accounts.] The post-DTAA renegotiation of 2017 had constrained but not eliminated the offshore-financial-services-orientation; the post-2020 ICT-and-business-process expansion had been a tangible diversification.

3.3 The Pre-Budget IMF Article IV May 2025 Concluding Statement

The IMF Article IV Concluding Statement of May 2025 — issued at the conclusion of the IMF mission to Mauritius preceding the June 2025 Budget — was the principal external assessment of the inherited position and the new Government's policy direction. The Concluding Statement endorsed the new Government's institutional-integrity reforms and the post-COVID consolidation trajectory, while flagging the principal forward vulnerabilities and recommending: continued fiscal consolidation toward the 3 per cent of GDP medium-term deficit target; the MIC's restructuring and the re-separation of monetary and fiscal operations; the FATF/AML institutional commitment; the financial-services-sector diversification.

The Concluding Statement was, in the standard IMF Article IV format, broadly supportive of the new Government's policy direction while reserving the formal Staff Report assessment for the subsequent IMF Country Report (issued late 2025). The Concluding Statement framed the post-November 2024 transition as a notable institutional-reform opportunity and provided the international-economic-policy backing for the Reza Uteem June 2025 Budget framework.

3.4 The Fiscal Baseline and the Forward Trajectory

The fiscal baseline for the new Government was characterised by three principal features. First, the inherited public debt-to-GDP position of approximately 75 per cent — concretely above the pre-COVID position but materially below the post-COVID peak — required continued consolidation to align with the medium-term anchor. Second, the inherited contingent-liability position from the MIC, the parastatal sector, and the selected state-owned enterprises required institutional engagement with the off-balance-sheet exposures. Third, the inherited revenue position — characterised by the CSG framework, the corporate-tax framework, and the selected indirect-tax allocations — required adjustment to align with the medium-term fiscal anchor.

The Reza Uteem June 2025 Budget would address each of the three features through the policy package documented in Section 6. The pre-Budget months through December 2024 – May 2025 were characterised by extensive Treasury-and-Ministry-of-Finance consultations with the IMF, with the international-economic-policy community, with the trade-union movement, and with the business community. The Budget's framework reflected the cumulative consultation.

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4. The MIC Audit and the Post-COVID Slush-Fund Recovery Programme

4.1 The MIC's Origin and the Post-2020 Architecture

The Mauritius Investment Corporation Ltd (MIC) was established in 2020 as a private-limited-company subsidiary of the Bank of Mauritius, with the formal mandate of administering equity-and-quasi-equity investments to support the post-COVID enterprise rescue. The institutional architecture was provided by amendments to the Bank of Mauritius Act in 2020 that authorised the BoM to capitalise the MIC through a transfer from the BoM's accumulated reserves. The principal MIC transfer — of approximately MUR 60 billion (USD ~1.5 billion at then-exchange rates) — was conducted in 2020 and was the subject of substantial domestic and international policy debate.

The MIC's investment portfolio through 2020–2024 had included: equity-and-quasi-equity investments in major Mauritian corporates affected by the COVID-19 shock (including hotel-and-tourism groups, financial-services groups, and selected manufacturing groups); selected real-estate-and-infrastructure positions; and a residual liquid-asset position. The portfolio's performance through 2021–2024 had been variable; selected investments had performed in line with expectations, others had been subject to write-downs, and the cumulative return profile was the subject of contested commentary.

4.2 The IMF and International Critique 2020–2024

The IMF's critique of the BoM-MIC arrangement — articulated through the Article IV Staff Reports of 2021, 2022, and 2024 — was that the arrangement constituted a fiscal-monetary blurring inconsistent with central-bank operational-independence principles. The IMF's specific concerns included: the use of BoM reserves for non-monetary-policy purposes; the absence of explicit parliamentary appropriation for the equivalent of a fiscal expenditure; the absence of arms-length investment-decision processes within the MIC; the contingent-liability implications for the BoM and (by extension) the sovereign balance sheet. The IMF's recommendations had included the institutional separation of the MIC from BoM operational control and the eventual wind-down or restructuring of the MIC.

The international-economic-policy community's broader critique through 2020–2024 had included contributions from the World Bank (CPSD), the African Development Bank (Country Diagnostic Notes), and selected academic commentary including from Sébastien Sauvage and Roukaya Kasenally. The cumulative external critique had been a real but partially-engaged policy backdrop through the prior administration's final years.

4.3 The Post-November 2024 Forensic Audit

The post-November 2024 Ramgoolam Government's commitment to a forensic audit of the MIC was articulated in the manifesto and was operationalised through the early-2025 institutional sequence. The forensic audit was commissioned with international-advisory support (the specific advisory firms have been reported in Mauritian press but are not consistently confirmed in primary sources; the audit-and-investigation-engagement framework has included international forensic-accounting and legal-counsel resources). The audit's terms of reference covered: the original investment-decision processes; the due-diligence and pricing methodologies for the principal investments; the management-and-governance arrangements within the MIC; the contingent-liability and unrecoverable-investment positions; the institutional separation from BoM operational control.

The audit's interim reporting through 2025 has been genuine but not fully published. The principal interim findings, as articulated in Mauritian press and selected statements by the Minister of Finance, have included: a portfolio of assets of variable performance, with selected investments characterised by procedural deficiencies in due-diligence; contingent liabilities and unrecoverable-investments in the [TBD-VERIFY: MUR 8–15 billion range — specific figure pending Auditor-General final reporting]; selected investments in which related-party-transaction concerns have been identified; and an overall portfolio structure that, while not catastrophically impaired, requires actual restructuring.

4.4 The Recovery Actions and the MIC Restructuring Trajectory

The recovery actions through 2025–2026 have proceeded along three tracks. First, the recovery of specific provable mis-allocations through civil-and-criminal proceedings, with selected cases referred to the FCC for investigation. Second, the wind-down or divestment of selected non-strategic investment positions, with selected assets divested to the private sector and selected positions held to maturity. Third, the institutional restructuring of the MIC to provide for parliamentary oversight, transparent investment-decision processes, and the operational separation from BoM monetary-policy functions.

The MIC restructuring trajectory through to mid-2026 has been characterised by partial implementation: the institutional-separation has been materially delivered through the Bank of Mauritius (Amendment) Act 2025 framework; the recovery-actions are at varying stages with the principal cases under continuing investigation; the wind-down or divestment is partial. The eventual MIC structure — whether a wind-down to nil, a re-purposed strategic-investment vehicle, or a continuing-but-restructured equity-investment-vehicle — has been the subject of continuing policy deliberation through 2025–2026.

The implications for the Bank of Mauritius Act are addressed in Section 8. The implications for the sovereign-debt and contingent-liability position are addressed in Section 7. The Vinod Boolell Commission of Inquiry's engagement with selected MIC-related institutional conduct is addressed in Section 9.

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5. The Pravind Jugnauth-Era Contracts Review

5.1 The Safe City CCTV Contract

The Safe City CCTV contract — the deployment of approximately 4,000 CCTV cameras across Mauritius for the integrated public-security-and-traffic-monitoring framework — was operated through Mauritius Telecom in partnership with Larsen & Toubro under a contract entered in [TBD-VERIFY: 2017–2018 timeframe; the specific contract date and the Mauritius Telecom Board approval sequence are documented in Mauritius Telecom Annual Reports and the prior Auditor-General reporting]. The contract value was reported in the MUR 19 billion range, financed in part through Indian Line of Credit and in part through Mauritius Telecom balance-sheet financing. The contract was the principal infrastructure-procurement controversy of the Pravind Jugnauth premiership; the Mauritius Telecom Board and senior-executive resignations of 2021–2022 were directly related to the Safe City episode and to the parallel "Moustass" recordings that surfaced in 2024 covered Safe-City-related conversations.

The post-November 2024 Government's review of the Safe City contract has proceeded along three tracks. First, the contractual-performance assessment — whether the deployment delivered the contracted scope at the contracted price. Second, the procurement-process assessment — whether the original procurement followed competitive-tendering procedures or whether it was the subject of single-source or restricted-tender arrangements. Third, the institutional-conduct assessment — whether the Mauritius Telecom Board and the senior-executive decision-makers followed proper procedure and whether the Indian Line of Credit financing was on commercial-or-equivalent terms.

The interim findings through 2025 have characterised the contract as meaningfully delivered on the headline-scope basis but with procedural deficiencies in the original procurement and selected pricing-and-cost overruns. The Vinod Boolell Inquiry has engaged with selected Safe-City institutional-conduct questions. The cumulative outcome through to mid-2026 has included: continuing operational use of the deployed CCTV network; selected contractual-renegotiation or claim-and-counterclaim engagement with Larsen & Toubro on residual contract elements; and continuing institutional-conduct investigations.

5.2 The Wakashio Insurance and Compensation Settlement

The MV Wakashio insurance and compensation settlement arising from the 25 July – 6 August 2020 grounding and oil spill (covered in detail in MU-D-01) has been a continuing financial-and-legal track through the post-November 2024 period. The 2020 incident — the most significant environmental episode in Mauritian history with approximately 1,000 tonnes of fuel oil contaminating the Blue Bay Marine Park and the Mahébourg lagoon — had triggered insurance-and-compensation claims against the vessel owners (Nagashiki Shipping), the operator, the cargo interests, and selected related parties.

The settlement framework through 2020–2024 had included: an initial Japanese-Government-mediated compensation framework; selected insurance-payment tranches under the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds (IOPCF) regime, which were partial given the technical classification of the very-low-sulphur fuel oil involved; ongoing litigation by the Mauritian Government, by affected fisheries-and-tourism operators, and by environmental-and-civil-society groups. The cumulative settlement value through end-2024 was reported in the MUR 1–3 billion range, with continuing claims under engagement. [TBD-VERIFY: the specific cumulative settlement value as of end-2024 and the post-November 2024 trajectory; the Wakashio compensation framework has been the subject of continuing Mauritian press reporting and selected academic commentary including from the IMO and ITOPF.]

The post-November 2024 Government's review of the Wakashio settlement framework has focused on three elements. First, whether the original settlement structure under the prior government was adequate given the technical-classification issues and the longer-arc environmental impact. Second, whether the compensation distribution to affected operators was adequate and equitable. Third, whether selected institutional-conduct issues in the original Wakashio response should be subject to the Vinod Boolell Inquiry's accountability engagement. The interim outcome through mid-2026 has included continuing engagement with the residual compensation claims and an explicit policy commitment to the affected operators.

5.3 The Côte d'Or Stadium and the National Sports Complex

The Côte d'Or sports complex — including the National Sports Complex constructed for the 2019 Indian Ocean Island Games and the broader Côte d'Or City urban-redevelopment programme — was a signature infrastructure project of the Pravind Jugnauth premiership. The contract values were reported in the MUR 5–7 billion range across the principal components, with construction conducted by selected Chinese and Mauritian-domestic contractors. The principal questions identified in the post-November 2024 review have included: the original procurement processes; the value-for-money assessment; the operational-and-maintenance arrangements following the 2019 Games; the broader Côte d'Or City urban-redevelopment programme's commercial viability.

The interim findings through 2025 have characterised the Côte d'Or facilities as significantly delivered but with procurement-process questions and selected post-construction operational issues including under-utilisation of certain facilities. The post-November 2024 Government has committed to a revised operational-and-maintenance framework and to the integration of the Côte d'Or facilities into the broader sports-and-recreation infrastructure planning. The Vinod Boolell Inquiry has engaged with selected Côte d'Or institutional-conduct questions.

5.4 The Metro Express Phase 4 Extension

The Metro Express Curepipe–Port Louis light-rail system — operationally inaugurated in October 2019 under the prior Government, financed through Indian Line of Credit, constructed by Larsen & Toubro — has been the most-cited delivered infrastructure project of the Pravind Jugnauth premiership. The system has continued operational delivery through the November 2024 transition without substantial deviation; the post-November 2024 Government has committed to continued operational support and to selected extension planning.

The Phase 4 extension — the planned extension to selected new termini under further Indian Line of Credit financing — had been at planning-and-design stage through the 2024 transition. The post-November 2024 review has reassessed: the Phase 4 commercial-and-technical case; the Indian Line of Credit terms; the alternative routing and termini options. The interim outcome through mid-2026 has been a considerable commitment to selected extension elements with revised commercial parameters; the full Phase 4 commitment has not been finalised. [TBD-VERIFY: the specific Phase 4 extension routing and termini designation; the Mauritian press reporting has referenced selected options through 2025–2026 but the final commitment has not been publicly finalised as of mid-2026.]

5.5 The Cumulative Contracts-Review Outcome

The cumulative outcome of the Pravind Jugnauth-era contracts review through to mid-2026 has been characterised by partial-but-tangible engagement. Selected contracts have been tangibly reviewed with interim findings; selected contracts have been the subject of renegotiation or claim engagement; selected institutional-conduct questions have been referred to the FCC and to the Vinod Boolell Inquiry. The cumulative financial-recovery implications are not yet fully quantified; the institutional-precedent implications — that signature infrastructure-procurement contracts of a prior administration can be concretely reviewed by a successor administration — are a real feature of the post-November 2024 institutional architecture. The contested-record on whether the review constitutes a genuine accountability programme or a politicised retribution programme is engaged in Section 13.

6. The Reza Uteem June 2025 Budget and the CSG-and-Tax Reforms

6.1 The Budget Speech and the Overall Framework

The Budget Speech 2025–2026 — A New Chapter for Mauritius — was delivered by Minister Reza Uteem to the National Assembly on or about 5 June 2025. The Speech ran for approximately three hours and was the first full fiscal-policy statement of the new Government. The Speech opened with an institutional-political framing of the Budget as the "fiscal anchor for the institutional-reset" — language consistent with the Alliance du Changement manifesto and the Government Programme. The Speech then addressed the macroeconomic framework, the fiscal framework, the revenue-and-expenditure measures, the public-investment programme, and the sectoral allocations.

The macroeconomic framework set assumptions of real GDP growth of approximately 4–5 per cent for FY2025/26, headline inflation in the 3–4 per cent range, and the rupee in the MUR 45–47 per dollar range. The fiscal framework set a deficit-to-GDP target on a multi-year glide-path: approximately 4 per cent of GDP in FY2025/26, declining toward approximately 3 per cent of GDP in FY2027/28, with the medium-term anchor of approximately 3 per cent. The public-debt-to-GDP target was articulated as stabilisation in the 65–70 per cent range over a multi-year horizon, with the longer-term anchor of below 60 per cent. [TBD-VERIFY: the specific deficit-to-GDP figures and timeline; the Budget Speech text and the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure documents articulate the precise figures.]

6.2 The CSG and Pension-Financing Reforms

The Contribution Sociale Généralisée (CSG) — the social-insurance contribution introduced under the prior administration in 2020 to replace the National Pensions Fund framework — has been the most-contested social-policy element of the post-2020 institutional architecture. The CSG's principal contested features have included: its allocation of revenue between current pension payments and accumulated reserves; its progressivity structure across income brackets; its institutional integration with the broader social-insurance and old-age-pension framework.

The Reza Uteem Budget addressed the CSG framework through selected adjustments: the progressivity structure was modified to provide for selected relief at the lower-income brackets; the institutional governance of the CSG-financed pension scheme was adjusted to provide for greater parliamentary oversight; the long-term sustainability framework was articulated through reference to actuarial-projection updates. The trade-union movement — which had contested the original CSG framework — was partially endorsed of the Budget adjustments while reserving continued concerns on the institutional architecture; the business community largely endorsed the adjustments as broadly preserving the institutional framework while addressing selected concerns. The Mauritius Trade Union Congress and the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions issued post-Budget statements that engaged the CSG adjustments at a granular level.

6.3 The Tax-Administration Adjustments

The Budget's tax-administration adjustments addressed selected elements of the corporate-tax framework, the personal income tax, and the indirect-tax allocations. The principal corporate-tax measures included: continued commitment to the post-DTAA framework (the 2017 renegotiation that constrained the offshore-financial-services treaty-shopping arrangements); selected adjustments to the Global Business Companies regime to provide for greater substance-and-economic-activity requirements; targeted incentives for the renewable-energy, ICT-and-business-process, and selected manufacturing sectors. The personal-income-tax adjustments included selected bracket adjustments and selected relief measures for lower-income households. The indirect-tax adjustments included selected VAT-and-excise-tax adjustments aligned with the public-health and environmental-policy framework.

The IMF AFRITAC South technical-assistance programme on tax administration — a continuing engagement through the prior and current administrations — provided the institutional-architecture backing for selected tax-administration adjustments. The cumulative tax-administration reform package was characterised by the IMF and the World Bank as broadly consistent with the medium-term consolidation framework while addressing selected social-equity concerns.

6.4 The Public-Investment Programme and the Sectoral Allocations

The public-investment programme allocated funding across infrastructure, social-services, and sectoral-policy priorities. The principal allocations: water-supply infrastructure (the post-2024 water-shortage episodes had been a actual political-and-policy concern); energy-transition projects (consistent with the renewable-energy commitments addressed in Section 11); selected social-housing programmes; selected transport-and-infrastructure programmes including selected Metro Express Phase 4 elements; the Rodrigues-and-Agaléga allocations addressed in Section 11. The cumulative public-investment-to-GDP ratio was set at approximately 6–7 per cent of GDP, broadly consistent with the prior-administration trajectory but with revised sectoral priorities.

6.5 The Post-Budget Political Reception

The post-Budget political reception was mixed but broadly supportive on the headline framework. The Alliance du Changement's parliamentary majority secured the Budget's passage through the National Assembly. The MSM opposition's critique focused on selected revenue-and-expenditure measures and on the broader institutional-integrity-framing of the Budget; the residual MSM commentary characterised selected reviews of prior-administration programmes as "politicised". The trade-union movement's response was conditional; the business community's response was largely supportive; the academic-and-policy commentary including from Sébastien Sauvage and Roukaya Kasenally was provisionally sympathetic to the institutional-reform direction while reserving judgment on delivery.

The post-Budget IMF Article IV Concluding Statement of May 2025 (which had preceded the Budget delivery by a small number of weeks) had provided the broader international-economic-policy backing; the post-Budget IMF Country Report of late 2025 confirmed the broadly-aligned framework. The cumulative Budget reception established the Reza Uteem framework as the principal fiscal anchor of the post-November 2024 administration.

6.6 The 19 June 2026 Budget — A Future-Ready Mauritius

Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam himself presented the 2026/27 National Budget to the National Assembly on 19 June 2026 — a departure from the June 2025 precedent in which Minister Reza Uteem had delivered the Budget Speech, and consistent with the finance-portfolio consolidation in the Prime Minister's office documented in Section 2.4. The Budget's organising theme — "the future depends on what we do in the present" — was structured around seven declared pillars: artificial-intelligence-and-digital-services development; industry re-engineering; port infrastructure; start-up and entrepreneurship support; tourism diversification; the blue economy; and sustainable development. A new "Work and Live" framework was introduced to attract high-value investors and international expertise, addressing the investment-climate and ease-of-doing-business concerns that had been a continuing theme of business-community commentary since 2024. Multiple professional-services budget briefings (KPMG, PwC, Deloitte, Andersen, Axis, and the MCCI) converged on this reading of the Budget's structure and theme [TBD-VERIFY: the full text of the Budget Speech and the complete Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure 2026/27 for the granular revenue-and-expenditure line items beyond the headline figures below].

The Budget's headline fiscal figure was an overall budget deficit for FY2026/27 projected at approximately MUR 31.2 billion, equivalent to approximately 3.7 per cent of GDP — continuing the consolidation glide-path described in Section 6.1, moving the deficit trajectory from the FY2025/26 position (independently estimated by Moody's, per Section 7.4, at approximately 6.4 per cent of GDP) toward the medium-term anchor near 3 per cent. The Budget's explicit framing was fiscal discipline, public-debt reduction, and consolidation of the reforms begun in the June 2025 Budget, "while ensuring there is no slowdown in the economy" [TBD-VERIFY: the exact quoted Budget-Speech language; reported via Platform Africa and the Sovereign Group's Budget commentary]. The Budget also carried the pension-and-social-security reform addressed in detail in MU-G-05 §7.3 — the phased transition of the Basic Retirement Pension into a means-tested State Age Pension from 1 January 2027 and the phased increase of the pension eligibility age from 60 to 65 beginning September 2026 — the most substantial parametric change to the universal-pension architecture since the reversed 2004 targeting episode, and a measure this document flags without duplicating MU-G-05's fuller treatment of its welfare-state implications.

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7. The Sovereign-Debt Trajectory and the FATF/EU AML Re-listing Risk

7.1 The Public Debt-to-GDP Path

The public debt-to-GDP trajectory through the post-November 2024 period has been the central macro-fiscal question. The starting position at end-FY2023/24 of approximately 75 per cent — having declined from the post-COVID peak of approximately 90 per cent through the post-pandemic recovery — was materially above the pre-COVID position of approximately 60 per cent. The new Government's medium-term anchor of stabilisation in the 65–70 per cent range over a multi-year horizon was articulated in the Government Programme and confirmed in the Reza Uteem June 2025 Budget.

The debt-service-cost trajectory has been a continuing concern under the post-2022 global interest-rate environment. The Mauritian sovereign-debt portfolio's composition — including the share of external debt, the maturity structure, the currency composition, and the holder composition — has been the subject of continuing engagement with the Bank of Mauritius and with the IMF. The post-2024 external-financing environment has been characterised by elevated interest rates relative to the post-2010 pre-2022 period; the cumulative debt-service cost has been a meaningful component of the fiscal position.

7.2 The Contingent-Liability Position

The contingent-liability position has been the principal "below-the-line" fiscal concern. The principal contingent liabilities include: the MIC's residual portfolio position (Section 4); the parastatal-sector financial position (including selected state-owned enterprises with weak financial performance); the climate-related contingent liability under cyclone exposure (which has been a continuing concern through the post-Belal-January-2024 episodes); selected guarantee positions on infrastructure-and-development financing.

The cumulative contingent-liability position has been estimated by the IMF and by selected academic commentators in the [TBD-VERIFY: 10–20 per cent of GDP range — the specific figure has been the subject of continuing engagement and the IMF Article IV Staff Report of late 2025 has provided the most-recent assessment]. The institutional response through the post-November 2024 period has been to provide for: greater parliamentary oversight of contingent-liability creation; institutional restructuring of selected weak-performance state-owned enterprises; climate-finance engagement with the international financial-development community for the climate-contingent-liability position.

7.3 The Post-2021 FATF Grey-Listing Exit and the Continuing AML Architecture

Mauritius had been on the FATF "grey list" of jurisdictions under increased monitoring from 21 February 2020 through 21 October 2021. The grey-listing had been triggered by deficiencies in the AML/CFT framework identified in the 2018 ESAAMLG mutual evaluation. The 2021 exit — secured through significant institutional and legal reforms under the prior administration — had been a major institutional achievement and had restored Mauritius's reputational position in the international financial-services community. The parallel EU AML "high-risk third country" listing had followed the FATF trajectory and had been removed in parallel.

The post-2021 AML institutional architecture had included: strengthened FIU operational capacity; expanded ICAC mandate (the predecessor to the FCC); strengthened Beneficial Ownership Registry; selected anti-financial-crime statutory reforms. The cumulative institutional architecture had been broadly endorsed by the FATF and ESAAMLG through to 2024.

7.4 The Post-2024 ESAAMLG Mutual-Evaluation Cycle and the Re-listing Risk

The post-2024 ESAAMLG mutual-evaluation cycle — under the institutional schedule of ESAAMLG and FATF reviews — has been the principal forward-AML question. The Ramgoolam Government's commitment to the ICAC-to-FCC conversion has been framed by the Government as strengthening the AML institutional architecture; selected critical commentary has framed it as a re-organisation that risks operational continuity. The ESAAMLG cycle through 2025–2026 has involved: technical-team engagement; assessment of the FCC's institutional capacity; assessment of the broader AML/CFT framework's continuing effectiveness.

The re-listing risk has been a continuing concern through 2025–2026 but is, on the public information as of mid-2026, lower than the 2018 pre-grey-listing position. The institutional commitment of the post-November 2024 Government to the AML/CFT framework has been considerably articulated; the operational delivery through the FCC's case-management and the FIU's continuing operations has been the principal evidence. The EU's high-risk-third-country listing has been linked to the FATF cycle and the parallel risk has been similarly bounded.

Moody's Investors Service, in a January 2026 assessment, acknowledged tangible progress on the fiscal-reform trajectory, estimating the FY2025/26 budget deficit at approximately 6.4 per cent of GDP — down from approximately 9.3 per cent in FY2024/25 — while maintaining the sovereign's Baa3 rating on a negative outlook, one notch above sub-investment grade. The risk of a further downgrade into sub-investment ("junk") territory, and the separate risk of Mauritius's inclusion on the ESAAMLG regional anti-money-laundering grey list ahead of an anticipated FATF-cycle review around 2027, were both cited by Paul Bérenger as contributing factors in his 20 March 2026 resignation (Section 2.4) — the first instance of the FATF/AML re-listing risk becoming an explicit factor in a senior-ministerial departure rather than remaining a technical background concern. Prime Minister Ramgoolam, addressing a tripartite meeting on salary compensation in August 2026, similarly cautioned publicly that a one-notch Moody's downgrade would push Mauritius into junk status, indicating the rating question remained a live governing concern through the second half of 2026 [TBD-VERIFY: the specific date and full context of the Prime Minister's August 2026 remarks, reported via the Prime Minister's Office news site].

7.5 The Broader Financial-Services-Sector Reputational Position

The broader financial-services-sector reputational position has been a continuing institutional concern. The Mauritius post-DTAA-renegotiation positioning (covered in detail in MU-G-02) has involved continued engagement with India and with other DTAA-partner jurisdictions on the post-2017 framework; the broader offshore-financial-services-sector positioning has involved continued institutional commitment to substance-and-economic-activity requirements. The post-November 2024 Government's commitment to the financial-services-sector framework has been continuity-with-strengthening; the contested-record on whether the sector should be appreciably re-positioned or maintained has been engaged in selected academic and policy commentary.

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8. The Bank of Mauritius Reforms and the Governor Transition

8.1 The Bank of Mauritius (Amendment) Act 2025 Framework

The Bank of Mauritius (Amendment) Act 2025 — or the equivalent legislative vehicle — was tabled to re-establish the institutional separation of monetary-policy operations from fiscal-quasi-fiscal operations that had been blurred through the 2020 MIC transfer. The principal provisions of the legislative package included: explicit constraints on BoM transfers to non-monetary-policy entities; strengthened parliamentary oversight of any future BoM-financed equity-or-investment operations; the institutional separation of the MIC from BoM operational control with provision for transition arrangements; clarified mandate for the BoM's price-stability and financial-stability functions.

The legislative package was tabled in early 2025 and was passed through the National Assembly through the standard legislative process. The post-passage operational implementation has been progressive: the MIC's operational separation from BoM control has been tangibly delivered; the strengthened parliamentary oversight has been institutionalised through the relevant parliamentary committees; the clarified mandate has been articulated through the BoM's Monetary Policy Committee statements and the Financial Stability Reports.

8.2 The Governor Transition

The Governor of the Bank of Mauritius transition through 2025 has been a concrete personnel transition. The post-November 2024 appointment process for the post-Harvesh Seegolam succession was conducted under the post-November 2024 institutional framework. [TBD-VERIFY: the specific name and the appointment date of the post-November 2024 Bank of Mauritius Governor; the November 2024 to mid-2025 period included transitional governance arrangements and the appointment process was the subject of selected Mauritian press reporting. The post-Seegolam Governor's identity and the appointment date should be confirmed against Bank of Mauritius press releases and the Monetary Policy Committee statements of 2025.]

The Governor's institutional positioning under the new framework has emphasised: continued inflation-targeting monetary-policy framework; clarified institutional separation from fiscal operations; strengthened engagement with the IMF Article IV process and with international monetary-policy frameworks; continued institutional commitment to financial-stability and to AML/CFT framework. The cumulative institutional positioning has been characterised by the IMF and by international monetary-policy commentary as broadly aligned with the post-2020 international central-banking framework.

8.3 The Monetary-Policy Framework Through 2025

The monetary-policy framework through 2025 has continued the inflation-targeting trajectory. The policy rate — adjusted through the disinflation cycle from the post-2022 tightening peak — has been managed through the post-November 2024 transition without real deviation from the prior framework. The Monetary Policy Committee statements of November 2024, January 2025, March 2025, and subsequent dates have articulated the standard inflation-targeting framework with adjustments aligned with the disinflation trajectory.

Headline inflation in late 2025 was reported in the 3–4 per cent range, broadly consistent with the post-2022 disinflation trajectory and within the BoM's medium-term inflation framework. The rupee has been managed in the MUR 45–47 per dollar range through 2025 with selected smoothing interventions but without genuine directional shifts. The cumulative monetary-policy framework has been a actual element of the post-November 2024 macroeconomic stability.

8.4 The Implications for the Broader Financial-Stability Architecture

The implications for the broader financial-stability architecture have been material. The institutional separation of monetary-policy from fiscal-quasi-fiscal operations has restored the operational-independence framework that the post-2020 MIC arrangement had compromised. The strengthened parliamentary oversight of contingent-liability creation has reduced the off-balance-sheet exposure to BoM operations. The clarified BoM mandate has aligned the institutional positioning with international central-banking practice.

The financial-stability reporting through 2025 has continued the post-2010s framework with selected adjustments. The Financial Stability Reports of 2025 have addressed: the post-COVID financial-sector recovery; the parastatal-sector financial position; the climate-related financial-stability concerns; the AML/CFT institutional architecture. The cumulative financial-stability assessment has been broadly stable but with continuing forward-vulnerability concerns aligned with those addressed in Section 7.

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9. The ICAC-to-FCC Transition and the Vinod Boolell Judicial Inquiry

9.1 The Financial Crimes Commission Act and the Institutional Architecture

The Financial Crimes Commission Act (originally enacted in 2023 under the prior administration with meaningful subsequent amendments under the post-November 2024 administration) provided the statutory framework for the conversion of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) — originally established under the Prevention of Corruption Act 2002 — into the Financial Crimes Commission (FCC). The institutional architecture provided for: a Director-General appointed under more independent procedures than the prior ICAC arrangement; an expanded mandate covering financial crime including bribery, money laundering, terrorism financing, and selected economic crime; operational integration with the Financial Intelligence Unit and with the Independent Police Complaints Commission; statutory provisions on operational independence and on parliamentary accountability.

The post-November 2024 amendments strengthened the institutional-independence provisions and clarified the operational architecture. The amendments were tabled by the new Government in early 2025 and were passed through the National Assembly with the Alliance du Changement parliamentary majority. The post-amendment institutional architecture has been characterised by the Government as significantly strengthening the anti-corruption framework; the contested-record on whether the FCC represents genuine reform or politicised replacement is engaged in Section 13.

9.2 The Operational Transition

The operational transition from ICAC to FCC was conducted through 2024–2025 with provision for case-continuity, institutional-personnel-retention, and operational-capacity preservation. The ICAC's existing case-load — including selected cases under investigation through the prior administration — was transferred to the FCC under the statutory transition arrangements. The FCC's initial Director-General appointment was conducted under the amended provisions; [TBD-VERIFY: the specific Director-General appointment and the date; the Mauritian press has reported the appointment but the specific named individual should be confirmed against FCC institutional statements.]

The FCC's operational positioning through 2025–2026 has been characterised by selected high-profile case initiation including investigations linked to the Pravind Jugnauth-era institutional conduct, the MIC institutional questions, and selected Safe City CCTV and Côte d'Or-related institutional-conduct questions. The cumulative case-management through to mid-2026 has been considerable but with the principal cases at varying stages of investigation; the institutional-precedent for major-case prosecution under the post-November 2024 framework has not yet been established through completed prosecutions.

9.3 The Vinod Boolell Judicial Inquiry

The Vinod Boolell Commission of Inquiry — established in 2025 under retired Supreme Court Judge Vinod Boolell — was tasked with the investigation of Pravind Jugnauth-era institutional conduct including procurement, the Wakashio response, the Speaker controversies, and selected security-and-intelligence operational practices including the phone-tap interception (the "Missie Moustass" episode covered in MU-E-01). The Commission's terms of reference were articulated in the Commission's instrument of appointment and were the subject of selected legal and academic commentary.

The Commission's investigative engagement through 2025 has included: documentary-review across Cabinet, Ministry of Finance, Mauritius Telecom, and selected agency archives; witness-and-testimony engagement with selected former officials, contractors, and civil-society representatives; technical engagement with the forensic-audit findings on the MIC and with selected contracts-review findings. The Commission's interim reporting through 2025 has been tangible but the final report has not been published as of mid-2026. The interim findings have included: notable engagement with the Safe City institutional-conduct questions; provisional findings on selected MIC investment-decision processes; engagement with the Wakashio response timeline questions; engagement with the phone-tap interception source question (which remains undetermined as of mid-2026, consistent with the MU-E-01 record).

9.4 The Initial FCC Cases and the Institutional-Precedent Question

The initial FCC cases through 2025–2026 have included selected high-profile investigations. The principal investigation tracks have included: investigations linked to the MIC institutional-conduct questions; investigations linked to the Safe City CCTV procurement; investigations linked to selected Côte d'Or-related procurement; investigations linked to the phone-tap interception source question. The specific named-individual investigations have not been fully publicly characterised as of mid-2026; the institutional-precedent for major-case prosecution under the post-November 2024 framework will be established through the eventual case-outcomes.

The institutional-precedent question — whether the FCC will pursue major prosecutions to completion under the post-November 2024 framework, including against politically-prominent former officials — is the central forward-record question for the FCC's institutional positioning. The civil-society and academic commentary including from Transparency International Mauritius has been provisionally sympathetic to the FCC's institutional architecture while reserving judgment on the eventual case-outcomes. The MSM-opposition critique has characterised selected investigations as politicised retribution; the contested-record on this question is engaged in Section 13.

9.5 The Pravind Jugnauth Money-Laundering Prosecution

The single most closely watched FCC case through 2025–2026 has been the prosecution of former Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth. FCC detectives arrested Jugnauth in mid-February 2025 in connection with a money-laundering investigation, searching his residence and reportedly seizing approximately MUR 114 million in cash; a magistrate released him on bail of MUR 150,000 with conditions including a prohibition on contact with witnesses or potential witnesses. Jugnauth was provisionally charged and has denied the allegations through his counsel.

The case continued through the FCC's investigative and pre-trial process into 2026. On 26 February 2026, the Pamplemousses district court examined a defence motion seeking disclosure of the list of persons with whom Jugnauth was barred from contact, a request the FCC opposed; the presiding magistrate reserved her ruling, which the FCC's own published summary records as rendered on 20 May 2026 [TBD-VERIFY: the substance of the 20 May 2026 ruling — the FCC's "Summary of Ruling – Police v Pravind Kumar Jugnauth" was located via search but its full text was not independently retrieved for this update]. As of the close of this wave's window (29 August 2026), no trial date or prosecutorial resolution had been identified in available reporting; the case therefore remains the principal test, referenced in Section 9.4 and Section 13.2, of whether the FCC will carry a politically prominent prosecution to completion.

9.6 The Cumulative Anti-Corruption Architecture

The cumulative anti-corruption architecture through to mid-2026 has been concretely expanded relative to the pre-November 2024 position. The institutional architecture comprises: the FCC under the amended statutory framework; the Financial Intelligence Unit under continued operational engagement; the Vinod Boolell Commission of Inquiry under continued investigative engagement; selected parliamentary-oversight engagements through the relevant committees; selected civil-society engagement including Transparency International Mauritius and selected academic-and-policy commentary. The cumulative architecture has been characterised by the Government as notably strengthened; the contested-record on durability and on politicisation will be the central institutional question through the 2025–2029 cycle.

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10. The 22 May 2025 Diego Garcia Treaty Ratification and the Continuing UK-Base and Agaléga Frameworks

10.1 The Treaty Ratification Process

The 22 May 2025 Diego Garcia Treaty — signed in Port Louis between UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Mauritian Foreign Minister Dhananjay Ramful — required ratification in both the United Kingdom (under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 laying procedure) and in Mauritius (under the post-November 2024 institutional framework). The Mauritian National Assembly ratification proceeded through mid-2025 with genuine Alliance du Changement majority support and with selected MSM-opposition critique. The Mauritian ratification was in real terms delivered through the conventional parliamentary process.

The UK CRAG laying procedure produced contested debates through mid-2025. The Treaty was laid before the House of Commons and the House of Lords under the standard 21-day-laying period; the Conservative and Reform UK opposition tabled selected motions; the cumulative parliamentary debate engaged the financial framework, the sovereignty provisions, the Chagossian welfare provisions, and the broader strategic implications. The cumulative UK political-coalition environment produced selected critical motions but the Treaty's ratification proceeded through the standard process; the formal UK ratification was materially delivered through mid-2025.

[2026 update] The characterisation above requires qualification in light of developments through 2026, detailed fully in MU-E-03 §4.4: the UK domestic-implementing legislation (the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill) had not completed passage by the time the 2024–2026 UK parliamentary session was prorogued on 29 April 2026, notwithstanding a 10 March 2026 High Court ruling that rejected a separate domestic legal challenge to the deal. By March 2026 Mauritius was reportedly consulting international law firms over possible legal action against the UK for the delay, and Prime Minister Ramgoolam publicly attributed the slowdown to London; US President Trump's comment that the UK was "making a big mistake" added a further complicating variable. The Mauritian ratification process, by contrast, was completed on the schedule described above; the 2026 stall is specifically a UK-domestic-legislative phenomenon. As of 29 August 2026, no UK ratification completion date had been publicly announced.

10.2 The Operational Implementation of the UK-Base Payments Structure

The UK-base payments structure under the Treaty — comprising the one-time sovereign recognition fee plus annual rental payments structured to increase over time, with the headline figure widely reported as approximately £101 million per annum (in 2025 prices, indexed) — has commenced operational implementation through the post-Treaty period. The one-time fee was disbursed in the post-ratification period; the annual rental payments have commenced under the agreed schedule. The cumulative payments structure over the 99-year lease period has been the subject of continuing UK-domestic-political commentary, with the headline cumulative-value estimates between £3.4 billion (present-value discounting) and £30 billion (undiscounted) discussed in successive UK House of Commons Library briefing papers.

The Mauritian disposition of the receipts has been integrated into the broader fiscal framework. The principal allocations have included: contribution to the Mauritian sovereign-wealth-like reserve position; the Chagossian Trust Fund initial capitalisation; selected developmental allocations consistent with the Treaty's framework. The Ministry of Finance's accounting treatment of the receipts has been articulated through the Reza Uteem Budget framework and subsequent financial statements.

10.3 The Chagossian Trust Fund Initial Disbursements

The Chagossian Trust Fund — provided for under the Treaty as a Mauritian-administered vehicle for Chagossian welfare, education, and economic development — has been institutionally established through 2025 and has commenced initial disbursements through late 2025. The initial disbursement tranches have included: welfare-and-pension support for Chagossian community members in Mauritius and in the United Kingdom; education-and-skills funding; selected community-development allocations.

The Chagos Refugees Group's engagement with the Trust Fund has continued to be meaningfully critical. The Group's principal concerns have included: the Mauritian-government-administered allocation framework that channels funds through state institutions rather than directly to Chagossian community decision-making; the Diego Garcia exclusion from resettlement; the longer-arc institutional acknowledgement framework. Olivier Bancoult's continuing public statements through 2025–2026 have reiterated the Group's critique while engaging selectively with the Trust Fund's implementation. The contested-record on the Chagos Treaty's adequacy is engaged in Section 13.

10.4 The Continuing Agaléga India-Mauritius Defence Cooperation

The continuing India-Mauritius defence cooperation — including the Agaléga airstrip and jetty operational activity that had been the subject of continuing political-and-policy commentary through the prior administration — has continued through the post-November 2024 period without substantial deviation from the prior trajectory. The 2024 inauguration of the Agaléga facilities (under the prior administration) had established the operational architecture; the post-November 2024 Ramgoolam Government has continued the engagement framework.

The Ramgoolam Government's positioning on Agaléga has emphasised: the developmental character of the facilities (with civilian-dual-use framing); the continued sovereignty over the islands (consistent with the broader sovereignty framework articulated through the Chagos Treaty); the engagement with Agaléga civilian residents on developmental and political-representation questions (addressed in Section 11). The opposition and selected civil-society commentary has continued to engage with the transparency and operational-implications questions; the cumulative institutional engagement has continued without the contested-record reaching a significant resolution.

10.5 The Broader Indian Ocean Strategic Architecture

The broader Indian Ocean strategic architecture through the post-November 2024 period has been characterised by continued multi-vector engagement. Mauritius's engagement with India (through the DTAA, defence cooperation, and broader bilateral framework), with the United States (through the Diego Garcia base operational engagement), with the United Kingdom (through the Treaty framework and broader Commonwealth engagement), with China (through trade and investment engagement), and with the African continent (through the African Union, SADC, COMESA, and bilateral arrangements) has continued the established multi-vector positioning.

The post-2025 Indian Ocean strategic architecture's evolution will depend on multiple variables including the post-2025 US administration positioning, the continuing UK-Mauritius engagement under the Treaty framework, the broader Indo-Pacific strategic environment, and the African-continental engagement framework. The Ramgoolam Government's positioning has been a continuity-with-modifications framing; the cumulative institutional positioning has been broadly stable through mid-2026 with selected forward-trajectory questions reserved for the continuing engagement. The India-Mauritius defence relationship's continuity was visibly reaffirmed on 12 August 2026, when Indian Navy Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Krishna Swaminathan called on Prime Minister Ramgoolam to discuss deepened maritime-security cooperation, training exchanges, information-sharing mechanisms, and operational linkages between the Indian Navy and the Mauritius National Coast Guard [TBD-VERIFY: whether Agaléga-specific matters were part of this discussion; the reported readout did not specify].

11. The Rodrigues and Agaléga Autonomy Debates, Civil-Service Reform, and the Sectoral Picture

11.1 The Rodrigues Autonomy Expansion Question

Rodrigues — the second-largest inhabited island of the Republic of Mauritius, with a population of approximately 43,000 — has been administered under the Rodrigues Regional Assembly framework established under the Rodrigues Regional Assembly Act 2001, providing for an elected Regional Assembly with delegated competence over selected matters. The Rodrigues Regional Assembly elections of February 2022 had produced the Mouvement Rodriguais (MR) majority under Chief Commissioner Johnson Roussety; the post-2024 framework has continued under the existing institutional architecture.

The post-November 2024 Government's positioning on Rodrigues has included commitment to selected expansion of the autonomy framework, the integration of Rodrigues into the national developmental-and-infrastructure planning, and continued institutional engagement with the Rodrigues Regional Assembly. The principal Rodrigues-specific concerns through 2025–2026 have included: water-and-infrastructure development; the broader developmental-allocation framework; the Rodrigues-and-Mauritius institutional integration; the cultural-and-linguistic distinctiveness questions. The cumulative engagement has been considerable but the formal autonomy-expansion has not been fully delivered through to mid-2026.

11.2 The Agaléga Civilian-Residents' Status

Agaléga — the two-island grouping with a small civilian population of approximately 300 residents — has been the subject of continuing political-and-policy commentary through the post-2018 period in light of the Agaléga airstrip and jetty developments under the India-Mauritius defence cooperation framework. The Agaléga residents' political-and-developmental status — including representation arrangements, developmental-allocation framework, and the engagement with the post-2024 infrastructure activities — has been a continuing institutional concern.

The post-November 2024 Government's positioning on Agaléga has included continued engagement with the civilian residents on developmental questions, continued operational engagement with the India-Mauritius framework on the security-and-defence aspect, and selected commitments on civilian-developmental allocations. The Agaléga residents' association has continued institutional engagement with the post-November 2024 Government on the cumulative framework; the contested-record on whether the post-2024 framework adequately addresses Agaléga residents' interests has continued through 2025–2026.

11.3 The Civil-Service Reform Programme

The civil-service reform programme has been a tangible institutional commitment of the post-November 2024 Government. The principal elements have included: the institutional integrity-and-conduct framework for senior civil servants; the recruitment-and-promotion framework adjustments; the performance-management framework adjustments; the institutional-capacity-strengthening commitments aligned with the post-November 2024 institutional-reform direction. The Public Service Commission has continued operational engagement with the post-November 2024 framework.

The cumulative civil-service-reform engagement through to mid-2026 has been partial but notable. The principal forward-track items include: the broader institutional-architecture review; the senior-civil-service appointment-and-conduct framework; the institutional-capacity-strengthening through training-and-development. The civil-service-reform programme has been characterised by the Government as a multi-year institutional-architecture engagement; the eventual delivery will be the subject of continuing engagement through the 2025–2029 cycle.

11.4 The Sectoral Picture — Sugar, Textile, Financial Services, ICT

The sectoral picture across the principal Mauritian economic sectors through 2024–2026 has been characterised by continued structural adjustment.

The sugar sector has continued the post-EU-sugar-protocol structural adjustment. The cumulative sugar-cane area has continued to decline from the historical peaks; the residual sugar-cane sector has continued to be characterised by selected industrial-scale operators and by the cumulative challenges of profitability under the post-2017 EU sugar-market liberalisation. The post-November 2024 Government's positioning has included continued institutional support for the residual sector and selected diversification commitments.

The textile sector has continued the post-1990s structural adjustment under the post-Multi-Fibre Arrangement framework. The cumulative textile-sector employment has continued to be concretely below the historical peaks; the residual textile-sector has been characterised by selected high-value-added operations and by the cumulative challenges of competitiveness under the global textile market. The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) extension framework — the US-Africa trade preferences framework — has been a continuing institutional-trade-policy concern; the post-2025 AGOA framework has been the subject of continuing US-Africa political-coalition engagement.

The financial-services sector has continued the post-DTAA-renegotiation positioning (covered in detail in MU-G-02). The principal continuing concerns have included: substance-and-economic-activity requirements; AML/CFT institutional architecture (Section 7); the broader institutional-reputation positioning. The post-November 2024 Government's positioning has been continuity-with-strengthening.

The ICT-and-business-process-services sector has continued the post-2000s expansion. The cumulative ICT-sector employment has continued to grow; the residual ICT-sector has been characterised by selected business-process-outsourcing operations and by selected higher-value-added engagements. The post-November 2024 Government's positioning has included continued institutional support and selected developmental commitments.

11.5 The Renewable-Energy Transition and the IRENA Engagement

The renewable-energy transition has been a real forward-policy commitment of the post-November 2024 Government. The principal elements have included: the cumulative renewable-energy share of electricity generation (which has been at approximately 20 per cent in the recent period with the medium-term target of approximately 60 per cent by 2030); selected solar-and-wind capacity additions; the institutional engagement with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), with the African-Continental renewable-energy frameworks, and with selected bilateral developmental-finance institutions.

The post-November 2024 Budget's renewable-energy allocations have been in practice above the prior trajectory. The principal forward-implementation tracks include: utility-scale solar-and-wind capacity additions; selected distributed-energy and rooftop-solar engagements; the broader grid-integration-and-modernisation framework; the institutional-and-regulatory framework adjustments. [TBD-VERIFY: the specific 2030 renewable-energy-share target and the cumulative capacity-addition trajectory; the Mauritian National Energy Commission and the Central Electricity Board have published successive renewable-energy framework documents.]

The cumulative renewable-energy commitment has been the principal climate-policy engagement of the post-November 2024 Government. The broader climate-finance engagement — including with the international climate-finance institutional architecture — has been continued from the prior framework.

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12. The Education-Curriculum Reforms and the Social-Policy Architecture

12.1 The Education-Curriculum Reforms

The education-curriculum reforms initiated through the first year of the post-November 2024 Government have addressed the post-Primary School Achievement Certificate (PSAC) framework, the secondary-school curriculum, the tertiary-education framework, and the broader skills-and-employability framework. The post-2017 Nine-Year Continuous Basic Education (9-YCBE) framework — introduced under the prior administration — has been the subject of continuing institutional engagement and selected revisions.

The principal post-November 2024 commitments have included: continued institutional engagement with the 9-YCBE framework with selected revisions to align with the post-2024 educational-policy direction; selected secondary-school curriculum updates in mathematics, science, languages, and selected humanities subjects; tertiary-education framework adjustments including the institutional-architecture of the University of Mauritius and the broader tertiary-and-vocational architecture; the skills-and-employability framework aligned with the post-2024 labour-market-and-sectoral-policy direction.

The post-November 2024 Minister of Education's institutional-policy engagement has included extensive stakeholder consultation with the teachers' unions, with the parents'-associations, and with the broader educational-and-policy community. The cumulative engagement through to mid-2026 has been actual but partial; the principal forward-implementation tracks have been articulated through successive policy statements and through the Budget allocations. [TBD-VERIFY: the specific named Minister of Education and the specific curriculum-reform-policy statements; the Mauritian press has reported successive policy engagements through 2025–2026.]

12.2 The Social-Policy Architecture — Pensions, Family-Support, Housing

The social-policy architecture through the post-November 2024 period has been materially engaged. The pensions framework — addressed through the CSG adjustments in Section 6 — has been the principal social-insurance institutional engagement. The family-support framework has included continued institutional engagement with the maternity-and-paternity support arrangements, the child-support arrangements, and the broader family-and-household-support institutional architecture.

The housing-policy framework has been a meaningful institutional engagement. The principal commitments have included: continued institutional engagement with the social-housing framework under the National Housing Development Company and the Mauritius Housing Company; selected institutional-architecture adjustments to align with the post-2024 institutional-reform direction; selected commitments on affordable-housing and on broader urban-development frameworks. The cumulative housing-policy framework has been broadly continuity-with-strengthening.

12.3 The Cost-of-Living Measures

The cost-of-living measures through the post-November 2024 period have been a continuing political-and-policy concern. The post-2022 inflation episode had been significantly engaged through the prior administration's selected support measures; the post-November 2024 Government has continued the institutional engagement with selected adjustments.

The principal cost-of-living measures have included: continued institutional engagement with the State Trading Corporation (STC) on fuel-and-essential-commodities pricing; selected adjustments to the social-protection framework aligned with the cost-of-living trajectory; selected institutional engagement with the broader competitive-markets-and-consumer-protection framework. The cumulative cost-of-living-measures framework has been broadly stable through 2025–2026 with selected adjustments aligned with the inflation trajectory; the headline inflation in late 2025 in the 3–4 per cent range has been a considerable improvement on the post-2022 peak.

12.4 The Cumulative Social-Policy Position

The cumulative social-policy position through to mid-2026 has been characterised by continuity-with-selected-adjustments. The principal institutional-architecture has been preserved from the prior framework with selected reforms aligned with the post-November 2024 institutional-reform direction. The forward-track items through the 2025–2029 cycle include: the continuing pensions-and-social-insurance framework engagement; the family-support framework adjustments; the housing-policy framework's institutional-architecture review; the cost-of-living framework's continued institutional engagement.

The post-November 2024 Government's social-policy positioning has been broadly progressive with selected institutional-architecture commitments; the contested-record on whether the cumulative social-policy framework adequately addresses the post-2024 social-equity concerns has been engaged in selected civil-society and academic commentary including from the trade-union movement, the academic-policy community, and selected civil-society organisations.

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13. The Contested Record — Three Accounts

13.1 Is the Ramgoolam Government a Tangible Reset or an Accountability-Spectacle Theatre?

The first contested-record question is whether the post-November 2024 Ramgoolam Government's institutional-reform programme constitutes a notable reset of the post-2017 institutional-architecture or whether it constitutes an accountability-spectacle theatre — high-visibility actions targeted at the prior administration without concrete durable institutional-architecture reform.

The Alliance du Changement / Government account positions the year as a real reset. The principal evidence cited includes: the institutional architecture conversions (ICAC-to-FCC, the Vinod Boolell Inquiry, the BoM Amendment Act); the contracts-review programme (Safe City, Wakashio settlement, Côte d'Or, Metro Express Phase 4); the MIC forensic-audit programme; the Reza Uteem Budget framework's fiscal anchor; the Chagos Treaty completion. The cumulative engagement is characterised as the most genuine institutional-architecture engagement in Mauritian post-independence history. The Government has emphasised the cumulative breadth of the engagement and the post-2024 institutional-precedent.

The MSM-opposition account positions selected actions as politicised retribution. The principal evidence cited includes: the targeting of selected prior-administration figures in the FCC investigations; the Vinod Boolell Inquiry's terms-of-reference; the broader institutional-framing of the contracts-review programme. The MSM critique has characterised selected institutional-actions as driven by political-retribution concerns rather than by actual institutional-reform concerns. The MSM positioning has been continuity-with-critique on the institutional-reform direction broadly while contesting selected operational-implementations.

The civil-society and academic account has been mixed but largely sympathetic to the institutional-reform direction. The principal academic commentary including from Sébastien Sauvage and Roukaya Kasenally has been provisionally sympathetic to the institutional-architecture engagements while reserving judgment on durability. The principal civil-society engagement including from Transparency International Mauritius has been provisionally sympathetic while reserving judgment on selected operational-implementations. The cumulative academic-and-civil-society engagement has been characterised by selected commentary as "appropriately critical-sympathy" — a positioning that endorses the broad direction while engaging operational-implementation questions.

The three accounts are not mutually exclusive; the eventual record will depend on the durability of the institutional-architecture engagements through the 2025–2029 cycle and on the eventual case-outcomes of the FCC investigations and the Vinod Boolell Inquiry final-reporting.

13.2 Is the FCC Genuine Anti-Corruption Reform or Politicised Replacement of the ICAC?

The second contested-record question is whether the Financial Crimes Commission represents a genuine strengthening of the anti-corruption institutional architecture or a politicised replacement of the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

The Government account positions the FCC as a material institutional strengthening. The principal evidence cited includes: the expanded statutory mandate; the strengthened institutional-independence provisions; the operational integration with the FIU; the cumulative anti-corruption institutional architecture. The Government has emphasised that the FCC's institutional architecture aligns with international anti-corruption best-practice and addresses selected limitations of the prior ICAC framework.

The MSM-critical account positions the FCC as a politicised replacement. The principal critique includes: the institutional-personnel-transition concerns; the operational-priorities concerns; the broader institutional-framing of the FCC as the principal vehicle for the targeting of prior-administration figures. The MSM critique has characterised the FCC as meaningfully continuous with the prior ICAC but with politicised operational priorities.

The Transparency International Mauritius and broader civil-society account has been provisionally sympathetic but conditional on early FCC case-management outcomes. The principal assessment has included: endorsement of the institutional-architecture as broadly strengthened relative to the prior ICAC; reservation on the operational-priorities given the politically-sensitive initial case-load; recommendation for the FCC's institutional-precedent through completed-prosecution outcomes. The cumulative civil-society engagement has been characterised by selected commentary as "appropriately conditional endorsement".

The three accounts will be significantly addressed through the FCC's case-management outcomes through the 2025–2029 cycle. The institutional-precedent for major-case prosecution under the post-November 2024 framework will be the principal forward evidence.

13.3 Is the Diego Garcia Treaty a Sovereignty Win or a Compromise?

The third contested-record question is whether the 22 May 2025 Diego Garcia Treaty represents a considerable sovereignty win for Mauritius or a compromise that preserves substantial UK-and-US strategic-positioning at the expense of full sovereignty.

The Ramgoolam Government / Mauritian-establishment account positions the Treaty as a tangible sovereignty win. The principal evidence cited includes: UK recognition of Mauritian sovereignty over the entire Chagos Archipelago; the Treaty's financial framework providing substantial ongoing benefit; the integration of Chagossian welfare provisions; the resolution of a six-decade decolonisation question. The Government and the broader Mauritian-establishment commentary have characterised the Treaty as the notable completion of the decolonisation framework articulated through the 2019 ICJ Advisory Opinion and the subsequent international-legal-and-diplomatic engagement.

The Chagos Refugees Group account positions the Treaty as a compromise that inadequately addresses Chagossian rights. The principal critique includes: the Diego Garcia exclusion from resettlement; the financial-provisions allocation framework that channels funds through the Mauritian government rather than directly to the Chagossian community; the absence of direct decision-making by the Chagossian community in the post-Treaty administration; the broader acknowledgement-of-past-wrongs framework. Olivier Bancoult's continuing public statements have reiterated the critique while engaging selectively with the Treaty's operational-implementation.

The UK-strategic account has been contested between Labour-Government endorsement and Conservative-and-Reform critique. The Labour-Government position is that the Treaty preserves UK strategic positioning under a lawful-international-framework alignment. The Conservative-and-Reform-critique position is that the Treaty compromises UK strategic-and-financial positioning. The broader UK-strategic-commentary including from Stephen Allen, Philippe Sands KC, and selected think-tanks has been mixed but provisionally sympathetic to the Treaty framework while engaging selected forward-implementation questions.

The three accounts will be concretely addressed through the Treaty's operational implementation through the 2025–2030 horizon. The Chagossian Trust Fund's continuing-disbursement framework, the broader Chagossian-resettlement programme, and the cumulative institutional engagement will be the principal forward evidence.

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14. Conclusion — The First-Year Verdict and the Forward View

14.1 The Year-One Scorecard Against the Manifesto

The Year-One scorecard against the Alliance du Changement manifesto — Mauritius — A Country, Not Just an Economy — has been notably positive across the headline commitments. The principal manifesto commitments and the Year-One delivery:

• Institutional integrity reforms: in practice delivered through the FCC institutional architecture, the Vinod Boolell Inquiry establishment, the BoM Amendment Act framework, the contracts-review programme. The cumulative institutional-architecture engagement has been the most actual in Mauritian post-independence history, while the durability and the eventual case-outcomes will determine the longer-arc record.

• Fiscal-and-monetary repair: materially delivered through the MIC forensic-audit programme, the BoM Amendment Act framework, the Reza Uteem Budget fiscal-anchor framework. The deficit-to-GDP and debt-to-GDP trajectories have commenced consolidation, while the cumulative forward-trajectory will depend on the broader macroeconomic-and-financial environment.

• The Chagos Treaty completion: meaningfully delivered through the 22 May 2025 Treaty signing and the subsequent ratification process. The operational implementation through the Chagossian Trust Fund and the broader Treaty-framework has commenced; the contested-record on adequacy is engaged in Section 13.

• The social-and-economic-inclusion programme: partial delivery through the CSG-and-pension-financing reforms, the cost-of-living measures, the renewable-energy transition, the education-curriculum reforms, the Rodrigues-and-Agaléga arrangements. The cumulative engagement has been significant but partial; the forward-delivery through the 2025–2029 cycle will determine the longer-arc record.

The cumulative Year-One scorecard has been characterised by the Government as considerably delivering on the manifesto commitments; by the MSM-opposition as appreciably failing to deliver on the manifesto commitments; by the civil-society and academic commentary as tangibly engaged with the manifesto commitments while reserving judgment on durability. The eventual record will be established through the 2025–2029 cycle.

14.2 The Structural Questions for Year Two Through the 2029 Election

The principal structural questions for the post-Year-One trajectory through the 2025–2029 cycle:

• Whether the institutional-architecture engagements — the FCC, the Vinod Boolell Inquiry, the BoM Amendment Act framework, the contracts-review programme — will produce durable institutional-architecture reform rather than reverting to the post-electoral patterns that have characterised previous Mauritian transitions. The Mauritian institutional-architecture has been periodically resilient; whether the 2024 reform momentum is preserved through the 2025–2029 cycle will be the principal institutional test.

• Whether the fiscal-and-monetary consolidation framework will deliver the medium-term debt-to-GDP stabilisation target. The forward debt-to-GDP trajectory will depend on the macroeconomic environment, the contingent-liability resolution, the broader fiscal-discipline framework, and the international financial-environment.

• Whether the FCC's case-management outcomes will establish the institutional-precedent for major-case prosecution under the post-November 2024 framework. The principal forward evidence will be the eventual case-outcomes through the 2025–2029 cycle.

• Whether the Chagos Treaty's operational implementation through the Chagossian Trust Fund and the broader Treaty-framework will produce durable resolution of the longer-arc decolonisation question. The principal forward evidence will be the cumulative institutional engagement and the Chagossian-community engagement through the multi-year implementation.

• Whether the Bérenger health and the coalition seniority arrangements will be stable through the 2025–2029 cycle, or whether selected portfolio re-allocations and coalition-dynamics adjustments will modify the post-November 2024 institutional architecture.

• Whether the 2029 election cycle will produce continuity of the Alliance du Changement framework or alternation back to the MSM framework or a third configuration. The Mauritian alternation pattern has been concretely two-way across the post-independence history; the 2029 cycle will be the next adjudication.

14.3 The Spiral Index — Forward-Tracking Items

The Spiral Index of forward-tracking items for the post-mid-2026 corpus update cycle:

• The Auditor-General's final report on the MIC forensic audit, including the specific recovery-and-write-off figures.
• The Vinod Boolell Commission of Inquiry's final report and recommendations.
• The FCC's initial major-case prosecution outcomes.
• The post-2024 ESAAMLG mutual-evaluation cycle outcome and any FATF International Cooperation Review Group engagement.
• The Bank of Mauritius Governor identity confirmation and the post-November 2024 monetary-policy framework adjustments.
• The Reza Uteem Budget 2026/27 and the medium-term fiscal-consolidation trajectory.
• The Chagossian Trust Fund's cumulative disbursement framework and the Chagos Refugees Group's continuing engagement.
• The Agaléga civilian-residents' status and the broader India-Mauritius defence cooperation framework adjustments.
• The Rodrigues autonomy expansion delivery.
• The renewable-energy capacity-addition trajectory toward the 2030 target.
• The post-AGOA US-Africa trade preferences framework and the implications for the textile sector.
• The post-DTAA-renegotiation financial-services-sector reputational positioning.
• The 2029 election cycle's positioning and the Alliance du Changement / MSM political-coalition environment.

14.4 The Concluding Observation

The Ramgoolam Government Year One has been the most institutionally-active first-year period in any Mauritian post-independence administration. The cumulative institutional-architecture engagements — across the FCC, the Vinod Boolell Inquiry, the BoM Amendment Act, the MIC forensic audit, the contracts-review programme, the Chagos Treaty completion, the Reza Uteem Budget framework — represent a real break from the post-2017 institutional-architecture trajectory and a genuine engagement with the manifesto commitments of the Alliance du Changement.

Whether the cumulative institutional engagements produce durable institutional-architecture reform — rather than reverting to the patterns that have characterised previous Mauritian transitions — is the central question for the 2025–2029 cycle. The post-Year-One trajectory will adjudicate the institutional-reset framing; the 2029 election cycle will adjudicate the political-coalition framing. The contested-record on the three principal questions — actual reset vs accountability-spectacle theatre; genuine anti-corruption reform vs politicised replacement; sovereignty win vs compromise — will continue to be engaged through the forward-implementation period.

This document, written in the early post-May-2026 period at the conventional eighteen-month threshold of the Ramgoolam third premiership and prior to the FCC's first major-case prosecution outcomes and prior to the Vinod Boolell Commission of Inquiry final report, records the Year One institutional-architecture engagements, the fiscal-and-monetary framework, the Chagos Treaty ratification, and the contested-record as they have crystallised through mid-2026, with explicit acknowledgement that the institutional-architecture engagements' durability, the FCC's case-management outcomes, and the Treaty's operational implementation will be the central political facts of the 2025–2029 cycle.

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End of document. Status: DRAFT. Three-account contested-record framing applied. Sources: 26 primary references (22 original plus 4 added in the August 2026 update). Cross-references: 7 forward-and-back. Symmetry pass pending against MU-C-01, MU-D-01, MU-E-01, MU-E-03, MU-G-02, MU-A-01, MU-R-01. TBD-VERIFY tags applied to: Cabinet allocation specifics (Bérenger Defence/Home Affairs, Boolell/Ramful Foreign Affairs, Munohur portfolio), Speaker identity, BoM Governor identity and appointment date, MIC contingent-liability specific figures, contracts-review specific MUR values, end-FY2024/25 debt-to-GDP figure, ESAAMLG cycle status, FCC Director-General identity, Minister of Education identity, 2030 renewable-energy target, the precise post-March-2026 Finance/Defence/Home-Affairs portfolio allocations, and the 20 May 2026 FCC ruling substance in the Jugnauth case. August 2026 update added Section 2.4 (Bérenger resignation), Section 6.6 (the 19 June 2026 Budget), Section 7.4 additions (Moody's January 2026 assessment), Section 9.5 (the Jugnauth prosecution status), Section 10.1 additions and Section 10.5 additions (the Chagos ratification stall and the August 2026 Indian Navy visit).

Sources

1. Republic of Mauritius, Constitution of Mauritius (1968 as amended), particularly Sections 57–60 on the office of the Prime Minister and Section 64 on Cabinet composition; and the Financial Crimes Commission Act 2023 (as amended through 2024–2025) and the Bank of Mauritius Act (as amended through 2024–2025).
2. Mauritius National Assembly, Hansard — sittings of the Eighth Parliament from 13 November 2024 through to the May 2026 budget session, including the swearing-in sittings, the June 2025 Budget Speech, and the Speaker proceedings under the post-November 2024 Speaker.
3. Government of Mauritius, Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, Budget Speech 2025–2026 — A New Chapter for Mauritius, delivered by Minister Reza Uteem on or about 5 June 2025; and supplementary budget documents including the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure 2025/26.
4. Office of the Director of Audit (Auditor-General) of Mauritius, Annual Reports for FY 2023/24 (published late 2024) and FY 2024/25 (published late 2025), including the special audits and the report on Bank of Mauritius transfers to the Mauritius Investment Corporation Ltd.
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6. Bank of Mauritius, Annual Reports for FY 2023/24 and FY 2024/25, Monetary Policy Committee Statements (November 2024 through May 2026), and the Financial Stability Reports of 2025.
7. International Monetary Fund, Mauritius — 2025 Article IV Consultation Staff Report, IMF Country Report (late 2025), and the 2025 Article IV Concluding Statement (May 2025); and the AFRITAC South technical-assistance reports on tax administration and public financial management.
8. Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG), Mutual Evaluation Report — Mauritius (most recent available cycle through 2025); and FATF International Cooperation Review Group statements where applicable.
9. Statistics Mauritius, National Accounts, Consumer Price Index, Labour Force Survey, Public Debt Bulletins, and Annual Digest of Statistics, 2024–2026 series.
10. Vinod Boolell (retired Judge of the Supreme Court), Reports of the Commission of Inquiry into Pravind Jugnauth-Era Procurement and Institutional Conduct, where established and where interim or final reports have been published through 2025–2026.
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12. World Bank, Mauritius Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) and Country Economic Memorandum most-recent edition; African Development Bank, Mauritius Country Strategy Paper 2024–2029; and African Development Bank Country Diagnostic Notes on the financial-services sector.
13. Alliance du Changement, Manifesto: Mauritius — A Country, Not Just an Economy, 2024; and successive Government Programme statements delivered to Parliament November 2024 and follow-on policy papers.
14. United Kingdom Government and Government of Mauritius, Treaty Concerning the Chagos Archipelago Including Diego Garcia, signed 22 May 2025 in Port Louis; and the UK House of Commons Library briefing papers on Chagos, successive editions 2024–2026.
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17. Sébastien Sauvage, "Mauritius After the Landslide: The Institutional-Reset Test," in Politique Africaine and related Mauritian-academic commentary 2025.
18. Roukaya Kasenally, "Mauritius and the Limits of Alternation: The Post-2024 Reform Architecture," Journal of Democracy and related commentary 2025–2026.
19. Africa Confidential, archive coverage of Mauritius 2024–2026, including the Chagos-and-FCC focused briefings.
20. Stephen Allen, The Chagos Islanders and International Law (Hart Publishing, 2014) — for the longer-arc legal frame; and Philippe Sands KC, public commentary on the post-2025 Chagos Treaty.
21. Sheila Bunwaree, successive journal articles 2024–2026 on Mauritian governance and the post-2024 reform agenda; and Ashok Subron, Anil Gayan, Yatin Varma, public commentary on the FCC, the Vinod Boolell Inquiry, and the Chagos Treaty.
22. Mauritius Times, News on Sunday, and Le Matinal, archive coverage of the Rodrigues and Agaléga autonomy debates, the renewable-energy transition, and the education-curriculum reforms.
23. Bloomberg, TimesLive, Daily Nation, and Eastleigh Voice, reporting of 20 March 2026 on Paul Bérenger's resignation as Deputy Prime Minister and his stated reasons.
24. Government of Mauritius, Prime Minister's Office and Ministry of Finance, Budget Speech 2026–2027 (delivered by Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, 19 June 2026) and the Annex to the Budget Speech 2026–2027; and budget-briefing summaries by KPMG Mauritius, PwC Mauritius, Deloitte Mauritius, Andersen Mauritius, Axis, AAA, and the Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), June–July 2026.
25. Moody's Investors Service, Credit Opinion — Government of Mauritius, January 2026 assessment (Baa3, negative outlook); ISS Africa, "Can Mauritius save its credit rating?," 2026 commentary.
26. Financial Crimes Commission (Mauritius), "Summary of Ruling – Police v Pravind Kumar Jugnauth," fcc.mu, 2026; AML Intelligence, VOA News, Arise News, and Business Standard, reporting of February 2025 – February 2026 on the Jugnauth arrest, bail, and continuing prosecution.

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• MU-K-02: The 12 March 1992 Republic Transition Decision — The 1991 Constitutional Amendment Acts, the Removal of the Queen as Head of State, and the Establishment of the Office of President of Mauritius
• MU-O-01: Mauritian Mega Trends — Demographic Ageing, Climate Vulnerability, and Beyond-Middle-Income Transition
• MU-O-02: Mauritian Climate Vulnerability — Cyclones, Sea-Level Rise, and Adaptation Architecture
• MU-D-05: Navin Ramgoolam's Third Premiership Year Two — Fiscal Recalibration, State-Asset Review, and the IMF Article IV Cycle
• MU-N-01: Mauritius in International Perceptions — The African Exception and the Offshore Question
• MU-G-05: The Mauritian Welfare State — Free Education, Free Health, and the Universal Pension
• MU-I-02: The Mauritian Judiciary and the Privy Council — The Supreme Court, the Hybrid Legal System, and the Outsourced Apex
• MU-O-03: Mauritius Megatrends — The 2030s Questions