My new complaint to the ICAC against the Mauritius Sugar Authority

So far everything in my case has been manipulated with regards to my rights and the ignorance of these rights by my employer the Mauritius Sugar Authority (MSA). Moreover it is very difficult to find a reporter who is willing to spread the whole truth in the press. i badly need the matter to reach parliament so that the whole of Mauritius will know the truth. Remember that there are intense corruption behind the bashing of my rights as illustrated in my new complaint letter to the ICAC below. I vow by every oath that my complaint to the ICAC is nothing but the truth. Your support really counts to put pressure and keep the flame of my fighting spirit high. With my faith and your support I shall overcome. Please take a few minutes to read my complaint to the ICAC as follows:

The Chief Investigator
Independent Commission Against Corruption
Marine Road
Port Louis

This Friday 08 October 2010

Dear Sir,

I will first and foremost express my disagreement with your email conclusion regarding my complaint to the ICAC against the Mauritius Sugar Authority (MSA) in a completely extended official complaint letter dated 8th July 2010 which is by far very clear and compelling. I have firm conviction in my complaint and actions. In the light of the fact that my case will definitely reach parliament through parliamentary questions very soon, it is very clear that the truth behind my case is now on the verge of being unveiled publicly. Please note that my case is public by nature and every action taken is being instantly posted on my blog and spread to more than three hundred members of my cause as well as to all my friends on facebook amounting to more than one thousand three hundred, who at their discretion could afford to spread my news to their facebook friends. Thereby allowing me to spread the news regarding my actions to nearly more than ten thousand Mauritians without forgetting my regular press interventions about these injustices in the local press. In the light of the development regarding my case and the fact that the director of the MSA is a former minister, I have every reason to fear the probability of a cover up. I am therefore making a new complaint comprising the logical adjustments to my former complaints that will make it clearer that all major points highlighted are strictly in accordance with the requirement of the Prevention of Corruption Act 2002. With reference to my complaint letters dated 18th June 2010 (Annex 9) and 11th July 2010 (Annex 27), please find below a detailed, complete and enhanced new official written copy of my complaint against the management of the MSA. Kindly note that this copy is a review of the abovementioned complaint letters with the required adjustment whereby all relevant information have been attached for your ease of references adequately.

(2) Hereunder you will probably find all the required information that will inevitably be of utmost importance to help you during your investigation. In relation to section (2)(b)(iii) and section (2)(b)(iv) of the Prevention Against Corruption Act 2002 which define an act of corruption as the abuse of a private or public office for private gain and/or an agreement between two or more persons to act or refrain from acting in violation of a person’s duties in the private and public sector for profit or gain respectively. These two definitions very clearly reflect the treatments that I have been subject at the MSA as highlighted for your perusal below. I have utmost confidence that your investigation will lead you towards establishing the guilt of MSA management for corruption through the malevolent misuse of information in the light of my allegations and the proofs/references put forward with utmost good faith, and this because the questions I am putting forward in relation to this case are compelling and indicative of the alleged fraud. At this stage, due to the fact that the Deputy Executive Director of the MSA lied several times before the enforcement committee of the Ministry of Labour, I am requesting you to keep me informed of all developments during investigation as well as the response of MSA management so that I can help the investigators to see clearer in case they receive misleading information.
(3) The sponsorship issue: My various official requests to the MSA for the allocation of my MBA sponsor was to no avail, and this in spite of the fact that I have notified the MSA management several times that a denial of 100% MBA sponsorship would amount to discrimination. Since December 2004 my requests were subject to the ignorance and fraudulent manipulation of my letters dated 30th December 2004 (Annex 1), 13th September 2005 (Annex 14), 16th July 2006 (Annex 15), 24th May 2006 (Annex 2) and 25 February 2008 (Annex 3). The humanitarian ground issue (Annex 10) to justify the allocation of only 50% sponsor is just a malevolent fraud and illegal eyewash aimed to divert attention from the manipulation of information regarding my application for 100% MBA sponsorship. The laws are here to unveil this injustice and protect me from the constant maintenance of this discrimination with regards to my rights of protection from discrimination relating to the provision of facilities (sponsorship) connected to any employment as enshrined in section (16) (d) of the Training and Employment of Disabled Persons Board Act 1996 (Annex 4) and section (11)(c) of the Equal Opportunities Act 2008 (Annex 5). Why only me 50% sponsorship? The law does not allow such discrimination because of my disability, so it will be interesting to know what explanation do they have for this? Why my letters have not been taken back to the Board for approval following my protest regarding the breach of my rights? The MSA management was accountable and duty-bound to take the matter back to the board for approval following my various request and protests. So doesn’t their ignorance and failure to do the needful amount to manipulation of information? Should not their omission be considered as corruption? Why has the current Deputy Executive Director been subject to two promotions in a row allowing him to emerge so quickly from the post of Information scientist to his current position where he is holding two management positions including that of Human Resources Manager at one go? Why have almost every board member been presiding a committee at the MSA when according to the MSA Act the Advisory Committee is the only Committee holding a lawful status? What is the remuneration of these Board Members for presiding these committees? It is very clear that the stand of these board members together with that of the MSA Management give rise to in-depth suspicions about their probable liability under section 11(b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 2002 whereby it reads: Any public official who accepts or receives a gratification for himself or for any other persons for abstaining from doing or having abstained from doing an act which he alleges or induces any person to believe he is empowered not to do or bound to do in the ordinary course of his function or duty, although as a fact such act does not form part of his functions or duties shall commit an offence. Why there have not been any follow up for the payment of the supposed 50% humanitarian ground sponsorship since April 2006? Why have my letters not been answered? As shown in paragraph 4 of the circular letter dated 18 July 2008 (Annex 11) and my protest in paragraph 3 of my letter to the MSA dated 18th July 2008 (Annex 12), the MSA was misleading and eye-washing in its strategy based on lies in order to divert all attention away from the malevolent and discriminating practices regarding the allocation of sponsorship for training and skill upgrading. How will the MSA management explain the malevolent content of this letter when my MBA sponsorship was illegally manipulated and delayed? With reference to my letter addressed to the new Executive Director of the MSA dated 6th July 2010 (Annex 13), I highlighted the fact that it was decided before the enforcement committee that the matter must be taken back to the board for approval. At this stage I will be grateful if the needful could be done to start in-depth investigations that will in the light of my proofs as supported by the appropriate sections of the POCA Act 2002 highlighted above in order to start the required legal procedures. This will prevent any further corrupt manipulation that may again lead to the breach of my rights. The points identified behind the sponsorship issues are sufficient to constitute the requirement of a case for corruption.

(4) The vacation leaves payment and time off facilities issue: Please note that the enforcement committee of the Ministry Of Labour has decided in relation to my letters dated 19 January 2007(Annex 16), 2nd July 2007 (Annex 17), 18th July 2007 (Annex 18) as well as the letters from the MSA dated 9th April 2007 (Annex 19),16th July 2007 (Annex 20) and the proofs available to justify that I have been subject to discrimination (i.e. the fact that other clerks were allocated time off facilities for study purposes) that: My rights for protection from discrimination regarding the provision of facilities relating to or connected with employment as enshrined in section (11) (c) of the Equal Opportunities Act 2008 (Annex 5) as well as in Section (16)(d) of the Training and Employment of Disabled Persons Board Act 1996 (Annex 4) have both been infringed. The committee therefore summoned the MSA to do the needful for:
(a) The time off facilities to be allocated.
(b) A flexible arrangement to be made in order to allow me to fill my leaves form with the required accessibility to the attendance register to ensure fairness on an equal basis with other employees.
(c) The vacation leave payment which is due since 2006 to be paid unconditionally.
Why the MSA management has not considered my rights relating to the allocation of my time off facilities, the filling of my leaves form fairly and the payment of my vacation leaves since 2006, all this despite the fact that I have sent various letters to protest against these injustices? There is not a single doubt that there was manipulation/misuse of information by MSA Management with MSA Board members as accomplices. Why are almost every board member presiding a committee at the MSA? Why have the current Deputy Executive Director been promoted twice in a row and this in almost less than two years? Are not there sufficient young MSA employees having the determination, professional qualification at Master Level and professional competencies like myself to handle the vacant management positions that will make these committees presided by MSA Board members nul and void? Behind all the continuous injustices I have been subject, are not there sufficient proof that the MSA Management has got unconditional support from MSA Board members to do as they wish whereby board members and management together enjoy collateral benefits. Thereby amounting to the criteria to constitute a case for corruption in the light of the fact that these Board members obtain suspicious gratifications for presiding these committees. Due to all the injustices I am subject to, I have every reason to believe that these gratifications are unlawful since they extend the normal remuneration and scope of duties of these board members. Thereby amounting to what constitute an Act of corruption for receiving gratification under Section 11(b) of the POCA Act 2002, whose constitution for committing an offence of corruption is defined in paragraph 3 above.

(5) The promotion issue:
I have been victim of tremendous injustice and discrimination since 2005. The vacant posts I applied for were illegally freezed after the setting up of illegal criteria designed to make me ineligible as shown in the letter of the MSA relating to internal advertisement dated 11 May 2006 (Annex 26) and my letters to the MSA dated 23rd May 2006 (Annex 22) as well as 25 February 2008 (Annex 3). The MSA management was illogic, malevolent in their illegal act of submitting me to injustices whereby all doors leading towards promotions were closed for me since I was asked fifteen years of clerical experience for a promotion to the post of Executive Officer that is just above that of clerical officer. These fifteen years of experiences were definitely designed to make me ineligible since I was the most able and qualified clerical officer. The delay for the filling of these posts is just a malevolent eye-washed since other form of career advancement through restyling occurred. As highlighted by the Mauritius Sugar Authority Employees Union (MSAEU) in its letter addressed to MSA management on 24/06/2010 (Annex 6): The former Executive Director of the MSA had recourse to independent assessor whereby the main objective was to safeguard the interest of some blue eyed employees who have showed allegiance to him, and this at the expense of meritocracy, qualification, justice, logic and fairness. Thereby jeopardizing the central engine of the organizational operations structure (Organigram) of the MSA. The intensive discrimination I was subject could be explained by the fact that some officers enjoyed facilities equivalent to eye-washed promotion. A reliable example is this field officer who in spite of not having the required qualifications for his former position has got the privilege of positive discrimination measures as well as eye-washed promotion through the restyling of his former post. After a first salary increase/monthly allocation of MUR 3000 he was subject to an unbelievable monthly allocation of 50% of his salary representing an equivalent allocation of more than 25 increments together with other benefits. On the other hand I was subject to tremendous exclusion and discrimination within an apartheid-like jungle. In spite of my disability rights as a disabled, I am subject to continuous discriminations and disability rights are being applied inside out with the field officer mentioned above who has no disability but continue to benefit from positive discrimination measures. Much more than this, in a letter addressed to the Barrister at Law of the Union Me D.Ramano on 31 July 2007 (Annex 23), I was surprisingly not picked up by management to fill the post of Scientific officer IT Social project but the blue eyed officer was targeted for a second promotion towards a post that have never existed (Senior Field Officer). Much more he don’t even have the qualification for a clerical officer. If I was not victim of discrimination, in my capacity as the most qualified, able, competent, brilliant and promising clerk within the MSA, I would have been restyled documentation clerk together with empowerment through the allocation of strategic and innovative responsibilities that would have allowed me to put my hard earned competencies and qualification at the service of the documentation department so as to modernize the operations of information and documentation management within the MSA in order to enhance and maximize organizational effectiveness. Instead I was subject to a systematic and discriminative exclusion while the organizational structure relating to the Information System and Knowledge Management have been left to a stand still with a clear lack of competencies, creativeness and innovation, all these are reflected in the documentation department and the registry who are both left and forced to operate within the ancient bureaucratic model.

So why I have not been given additional responsibilities and restyled as Information Scientist? Restyling is without doubt a form of career advancement or a form of promotion and it is illegal to deny me this in relation to section 16(1)(b) of the Training and Employment of Disabled Persons Board Act 1996 (Annex 4) and section 11(d) of the Equal Opportunities Act 2008 (Annex 5) . What criteria did MSA management use for the selection of employees eligible for the allocation of responsibilities as a mean of empowerment for restyling?(PETIT COPAIN? Random selection? Qualifications? What are the qualifications of officers who have been restyled? Were not there other employees with better profile in term of qualifications, competencies and dedication to handle further responsibilities? It should not be forgotten that I was malevolently excluded for experience through empowerment as shown by the letter of the MSA dated 11 December 2007 (Annex 24). This again is illegal. Why have the vacant posts not been filled since 2006? On what ground were these vacant posts freeze? Were the board members agreeable to freeze these vacant posts? If yes why? Was there any manipulation of information at the heart of this promotion issue? These questions will inevitably lead towards establishing the extent to which the misuse of information has spread throughout the operations of the MSA, thereby leading to the illegal discrimination and maladministration in my case. Again the major points are very clear: all these would not have been possible if the MSA Management has not enjoyed the empowerment to do as they wish with the complicity of MSA Board members who altogether are subject to the enjoyment of collateral benefits that constitute the requirement to suspect corruption as shown in paragraph 3 and 4 above.

I have in the light of my qualification, merits and competencies applied for the now vacant post of Information Scientist as highlighted in my letter dated 6thJuly 2010 (Annex 13) and the MSA Board should be accountable for a reply. If I am not selected, they should state why not?
Please note that the content of all my correspondence to the ICAC are made public through online means in less than 24 hours. I am doing this because this is the only way to spread the truth and I want the matter to reach the parliament in due course. I am hereby requesting you Sir to do the needful in order to allow the ICAC to undergo an in depth investigation to confirm my allegation and thereby undertake appropriate action so as to ensure that the will of the state to fight against corruption for the prosperity of our motherland, is not without effect.

I am also to request you to do the needful for capable investigators to handle the issue because I have firm belief in my conviction that there is corruption and I am not satisfied with the conclusion of former investigators because my complaint is clearly in accordance with the POCA Act 2002.

I thank you in anticipation.

Best Regards


Mervyn Anthony CM, MBA
Email: mervynanthony@hotmail.com
Blog: ma-disabilityrightalliance.blogspot.com