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66th Year -- No. 3604 Friday, August 21, 2020 www.mauritiustimes.com facebook.com/mauritius.times 18 Pages - ePaper MAURITIUS TIMES “Leaders instill in their people a hope for success and a belief in themselves. Positive leaders empower people to accomplish their goals.” -- Unknown Interview: Nishan Degnarain - Development Economist The Wakashio Crisis “There are many questions that need to be answered about how this incident was allowed to happen. Trust has been lost” Reinventing ourselves The underlying symbolism of Ganesha Chaturti can provide us with the all-encompassing vision that is at all times a vital necessity By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee + See Page 3 Fixing the illiberal democracy that is Mauritius Mauritius also does not need a system On the Road and in the where an unpopular monarch is replaced by another strongman with Temple: Casual Encounters quasi absolute powers By Sameer Sharma + See Page 4 By Nita Chicooree-Mercier + See Page 18 Mauritius Times Friday, August 21, 2020 www.mauritiustimes.com Edit Page facebook.com/mauritius.times 2 The Conversation MV Wakashio Disaster: The Aftermath Global business travel will not here's a lot, perhaps even too much which experience with past shipwrecks and that has been said and written about oil spills points to potentially a long-drawn be killed off by coronavirus Tthe shipwreck of the MV Wakashio. legal battle that will stretch over years, but Now it is time for the authorities to proceed we hope not 16 years as was the case with coolly and with determination in the han- the Amoco Cadiz disaster off the coast of dling of the grave consequences and impli- Spain and Portugal. cations of that accident as regards the And here there are some serious obsta- marine ecosystem that has been impacted cles that will have to be faced by the and about the social and economic fallouts Mauritian authorities. They will concern the that concern livelihoods and the tourism communication strategy to be adopted to sector, given the negative image that has counter adverse propaganda that has already been projected of the country as already begun against the country; a full tourist destination. inventory through rigorous collection and There are three main aspects to this documentation of the scientific evidence Photo - globalaffairs.ucdavis incident: one is to establish how the MV about the damage done to the marine lobal business travel has large- couple of years. It is also a sector that Wakashio got grounded on the reef; se- ecosystem, and similarly for the socio-eco- ly ground to a halt during the engages its employees in substantial condly, the response of the authorities as a nomic impact; and the constitution of the Gpandemic. Experts have been business travel around the world. For result; and thirdly, the compensation that best legal team that will defend the coun- raising the alarm that this is the death these reasons, it is arguably the ideal will become due for the cross-cutting, try's case at the international level. of business travel as we know it, ar- sector in which to carry out research extensive damage done. Views have been expressed by English guing that it will be a long time before into the future of business travel. In his interview to this paper today, Conservative Party MP Henry Smith to the the virus is really gone and that busi- We interviewed 15 global managers Nishan Degnarain who has already written effect that Mauritius' handling of the present ness people have become used to in major medical devices firms, before comprehensive articles on the incident in accident "does not bode well for their so- meetings on the likes of Zoom and MS and during the pandemic, to explore Forbes magazine, provides some guidance vereignty claim they could protect the Teams. As a result, many of them no the importance of business travel in in this matter. As regards how the vessel Chagos Islands' pristine waters if in control" longer see the need for constantly carrying out their global work. They deviated from its path and hit the reef, this and, further, it has been argued that the crossing the globe and living out of a resoundingly agreed that although their is a matter for the shipping company and Blue Bay lagoon was already in decline and suitcase. travel schedules are for the most part the regulators to sort out, and they have to therefore only minimal damage was caused We want to urge caution here. on hiatus, they expect to be back in the be held to account for that. by the oil spill. One must therefore be care- There have been similar predictions air as soon as they can. ful here about accepting experts forced before, and they were proven wrong. When it comes to the response of the At least in the short term, however, upon the country by the shipping company The 9/11 attacks had a negative effect authorities, there are many questions that they expect global travel to proceed dif- and host nation, whose assistance here on global business travel, for example, they need to answer to the satisfaction of ferently for them. Their companies will must take the form of funds that will enable but it found its feet several years later. the people, because so far all the explana- focus on sending executives to coun- Mauritius to choose its own scientists and There was a similar downturn and tions that have been given have been found tries that are part of regional travel cor- experts. It goes without saying that these revival in business travel after the glo- wanting in one way or another. According to ridors where flights are permitted and the views expressed by experts in inter- will have to work in tandem with local ones bal financial crisis of 2007-09. to prepare the required dossier. there are not quarantine requirements views in this paper and other platforms, the In 2015, the International Air at either end. country had the necessary range and As regards the legal team, here too we Transport Association found that it Our interviewees report that some sophistication of equipment and of human will have to recruit the best lawyers both for takes at least five years for the industry firms have already increased their tra- expertise to swing into action without delay defending the scientific evidence and for to recover from substantial short-term vel in cars or trains where convenient, to prevent an oil spill, in which task the ship- the complex compensation aspects, which shocks. But despite those bumps, glo- particularly in Europe. Intercontinental ping company and regulators also ought to in turn depend on equally complex insu- bal airline traffic has shown stable long- business travel is expected to be the have promptly joined in with equipment as rance policies which the shipping compa- term growth since the 1970s. Clearly, slowest to return, with North and South well as human resources. Why did this not nies contract. the longer the pandemic lasts, the America likely to be the last continents happen? longer the recovery may be, but it will On the other hand, there is a possibility to open up again. Companies we probably come. The same thing applies to the clean-up that a successful outcome may help talked to have planned their first face- once the oil spill had occurred, namely the Mauritius to emerge stronger, as a middle Our research to-face global gatherings for October responsibility of the shipping company and income country with world class science 2020, based within their home region. the regulators, and here the use of the and on the way to building world class A revival in global business travel is appropriate dispersants was crucial. Appa- ocean capacity. likely to vary across sectors and the In parallel, the travel industry is rently, there are natural dispersants as required location of travel. One sector keen to remove restrictions and open If the authorities henceforth play the opposed to cleanup chemicals which can that is centre stage right now, and up travel routes, particularly within and game more transparently and with the increase the damage to the marine ecosys- arguably more insulated from the pan- between Europe, the Middle East and national interest genuinely at heart, we may tem, whereas the natural ones do not. demic than others, is life sciences. east Asia. We are also witnessing a well win this battle with flying colours. rise in the use of individuals and orga- Medical device companies such as The most crucial aspect is the third one, nisations hiring private jets as short- Medtronic and Roche have been bene- term solutions to avoiding airport fiting by selling equipment to help fight delays. the virus, such as ventilators and Mauritius Times testing kits. Pharmaceutical companies Founder/Editor: Beekrumsing Ramlallah - Aug 1954-Sept 2000 such as AstraZeneca and Pfizer are Kieran Michael Conroy, Queen's Editor-in-chief: M. Ramlallah / Senior Editor: Dr RN Gopee banking on producing a vaccine before University Belfast, Anthony This epaper has been produced with the assistance of 2021. McDonnell & Stefan Jooss, Doojesh Ramlallah, Sultana Kurmally and Kersley Ramsamy University College Cork So this is an industry that has Pearl House 4th Floor Room 406 - Sir Virgil Naz Street, Port Louis -- Tel: 5-29 29301 Tel/Fax: 212 1313 stayed active during the crisis and is likely to be a big winner over the next l Cont. on page 12 mtimes@intnet.mu www.mauritiustimes.com facebook.com/mauritius.times Musings Mauritius Times Friday, August 21, 2020 3 making, but they also give us a noble, divine vision and inspire us to raise our mind to the heights of that great goal’ Reinventing ourselves – namely, bettering ourselves for the greater good of humanity, which begins with our society and our country.

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