Case of Dayal and Lutchmeenaraidoo: Decision to prosecute rests upon DPP

The former Finance Minister Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo, who was transferred to foreign affairs following a probe by the anti-corruption agency into a loan taken out by latter, has received the applause of members of the majority while the opposition walked out. That was during his speech on a new disaster management legislation. There was a rather cool atmosphere during exchanges between the leader of the opposition and the Prime Minister, which was quite surprising, especially given the current political backdrop. Paul Bérenger’s private notice question was this week set on the issue of Pailles Smart City with supplementary questions overlapping on euro loan and transfer of funds to Hong Kong. The PNQ ended with a supplementary question asking the Prime Minister whether he has been prevented from asking the former Minister of Finance to step down. Sir Anerood Jugnauth’s reply was clear: “I have neither asked him to step down nor have I been prevented from asking him to step down.” The Prime Minister added that the opposition has been campaigning against police arresting people and bringing them to court under provisional charges. “They consider it unjust. With this in mind, I asked the Commissioner of Police not to take any action until enquiry is over. Let the DPP decide whether there is a case and on what offence. This has been the case with Raj Dayal and Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo.” KPMG launched an Expression of Interest on 11 April 2012 to dispose of 78 acres of land including the five restaurants in an extent of 9 acres owned by Domaine Les Pailles and 69 acres by Guibies Properties Ltd, both subsidiaries of the SIC. Consequently, Yihai International Investment Management Ltd (Yihai), represented by Mr Li Hai from China, was selected as the preferred bidder. The offered price was Rs 486 million for the 78 acres. The transaction did not materialise as Yihai refused to employ the existing 160 staff of Domaine Les Pailles. In June 2013, SIC launched a Request for Proposals for rental of the restaurants at Domaine Les Pailles. Given that the offers received were not commercially attractive, this also did not materialise. In October 2013, SIC management restarted negotiations with Yihai on its offer made in 2012. Yihai then accepted to maintain the employment of the 160 staff for a minimum period of two years against a reduction of Rs 45 million in the sale price bringing the net offer to Rs 441 million. In March 2014, an MoU between SIC and Yihai was signed and a 5% deposit (Rs 22 million) was paid by Yihai to SIC. Following supplementary questions from the opposition, Sir Anerood Jugnauth told the House that ICAC is having “a general enquiry on the Pailles Smart City and consequently the project is frozen for the time being.”