Madam Speaker, with your permission, I shall reply to PQ B/572 addressed to the hon. Prime Minister. With regard to part (a) of the question, I am informed that no external grant was received either from India or Saudi Arabia for the implementation of the Heritage City Project. I wish to inform the House that from information available at the level of my Ministry on 09 October 2015, the previous government decided that the then Ministry of Financial Services and Good Governance would be responsible for the development of the Heritage City Project on a plot of land of 336 arpents situated opposite Ebene Cyber City on the left of Bagatelle dam. On 18 December 2015, the then government approved the setting up of the Heritage City Co. Ltd, a wholly state-owned company for the implementation of the Heritage City with a timeframe of three years as from 2016. With regard to part (b) of the question, Madam Speaker, I am informed that a High- Powered Committee met on 23 February 2016 under the chairmanship of the then Secretary to Cabinet and Head of Civil Service and comprising the then Financial Secretary and Solicitor General to consider a due diligence report on the procurement of professional services of Stree, that is, the name of a consultancy company, for an amount not exceeding USD 4.34 million. As per the report of the High-Powered Committee, the Heritage City Project was to be implemented under a Government-to-Government arrangement between the Government of the Republic of Mauritius and the Government of United Arabs Emirates. However, as per the file records at my Ministry, there is no documentary evidence of any proper Government to Government agreed in this regard. We found a letter that has been signed by the chairman of PCFC Real Estate Development FZE and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Financial Services, Good Governance and Institutional Reform which talks about putting in place and it is already proposing to appoint Stree. So, this agreement is to

29 appoint Stree consulting represented by Mr Ameer Shaheed to assist the Government of Mauritius in respect of master planning, design, preparation and evaluation of bids. We could not find, Madam Speaker, any proper Government to Government agreement between the two countries. Remember the dates the meeting of the High-Powered Committee happened on 23 February 2016. Following the decision of the High-Powered Committee, the then government approved on 02 March, so a few days later, the procurement of professional services of Stree Consulting with the Heritage City Co. Ltd for an amount not exceeding Rs4.34 million for master planning and engineering design and government officers’ schematic designs. An agreement, a contract, was signed between Heritage City Co. Ltd and Stree Contracting on 17 April 2016. On 16 March 2016, an amount of Rs55 million was transferred from the Accountant General to the State Bank of Mauritius in favour of Heritage City Co. Ltd for implementation of the project. From records available at my Ministry, the total funds disbursed to Stree Consulting Ltd through direct debit of SBM account of Heritage City Co. Ltd was USD 1,102,795 equivalent to Rs 39,716,981, detailed as follows – • 15 April: an amount of USD 234,795 equivalent to Rs8,382,181 and • on 01 June 2016, an amount of USD 868,000 equivalent to Rs31,344,800. These funds represented 20% of the mobilisation and the information gathering fees including additional revision of the concept master plan for Heritage City and travel air fare. So, in fact Madam Speaker, Rs39.7 million spent without any RFP, without any proper procurement procedure and nothing done, it was just mobilisation fee. So, nothing came out of it. I was doing some simple calculation: Rs 39.7 million down the drain. Week after week, we throw a lot of millions of scandals but when you relate that, for example, our colleague was just talking about electricity, that would pay for 80,000 vulnerable households on social register if we pay Rs 500 for electricity bill. Rs39.7 million, 40 million nearly, would pay 2000 underprivileged families with water tanks and pumps so they could get uninterrupted water supply as water 24/7 was but a faraway dream. So, it was a lot of money wasted by the Ministry of Good Governance but no good governance, no procedure.

(Interruptions)

30 Madam Speaker, Members of the House may be informed that the Heritage City Co. Ltd has already been wound up since 29 April 2020 and, that is, marked as defunct as the records of the Registrar of Companies and it is to be noted that the remaining amount on the bank balance of Heritage City to the tune of Rs123,214 was returned to the Accountant General on 28 January 2020. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Yes!

Hon. Minister, will you be able to inform the House who was responsible for that Ministry and whether there would be a proper enquiry carried out in regards to those?

That was Minister Roshi Bhadain.

Former Minister.

Will there be any proper enquiry being carried out with regard to this?

Yes, an enquiry will be carried out and I must add that it is a disgrace that people like that are today down protesting on the street when they have squandered money like this.

(Interruptions)

All right, so, we have finished with questions.