Another major institution without a head. The amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act 2002 (Poca) were gazetted last Saturday, the government should soon appoint an expected saviour if it wants to convince the public that the Independent Commission against Corruption (Icac) will be more efficient – or simply efficient.

The results (or non-results) have spoken for themselves. The Icac has been hopeless on all counts. Since its creation in 2002, the commission has not managed to give enough evidence in any prosecution case and achieve any conviction while it kept on saying that corruption was rife everywhere. It created the perception that anyone in society (no one can be trusted) could be a white-collar criminal but it never managed to prove it!

Yet, the commission was set up with concrete and laudable objectives. Its main one was to make Mauritius “clean and fair” It had a “mission, a vision and values”, which are “integrity and honesty, team spirit, responsibility, professional excellence and respect of the human rights”.

In fact, if the Icac failed in its mission, it may be because it didn’t respect many of its initial values. The aim is not to question the “integrity and honesty” of the commissioners but the car episode did hurt the reputation of commissioner Navin Beekarry. The accusations of trade unionist Jack Bizlall that the Icac commissioner helped money laundering and received gratification over the purchase of a new Mercedes from Iframac did not help to improve the perception of the Icac by the public.

The internal conflicts between the main commissioner and his staff showed no evidence of “team spirit”. The dismissal of Roshi Bhadain, former director of the corruption and investigation division at Icac, by Navin Beekarry is a proof that there were internal problems. Once more, Navin Beekarry was discredited by the Supreme Court who thought, “the reasons for his (Bhadain’s) suspension and his dismissal do not match.” They allowed Roshi Bhadain to lodge his judicial review because of Icac’s inconsistent treatment.

Moreover, a declaration by Moussa Taujoo, an Icac commissioner, sheds some light on the internal crisis. He finds it unconceivable that, while decisions are supposed to be made by the commissioners, he “learns that there have been arrests and other operations while reading the press”. In fact, Moussa Taujoo points at the authoritarian behaviour of the former commissioner. “He spread terror and no one has ever had the courage to say, «no, we do not agree»,” revealed a former consultant of the Icac, Andrew Stephenson.

As for “professional excellence”, the absence of any conviction and the incapacity of the Icac to make Mauritius “cleaner” prove it wrong. The fact that arrests were made only on fishing expeditions – and not on reasonable suspicion – proves that the commission did not abide by its principles of “responsibility and the respect for human rights”. Judges Bushan Domah and Bernard Sik Yuen made it clear that the commission did not abide by the rules, procedures and fundamental rights of every citizen. As Roshi Bhadain explains, “I believe the Icac should change its mentality and stop its ‘dramatic announcement’ policy”.

As the Icac has not respected any of its main principles, it was condemned to failure from the start. Some observers consider that human resources are at the core of the problem. “The detection of money laundering is a new specific field. And most investigators are actually trained to deal with criminal cases.” This may explain the lack of evidence that led to the dismissal of charges in Court.

In any case, the government thought that the best solution to make the Icac more efficient was to amend the Poca. The parliamentary committee, which proved just as inefficient as the Icac itself, has thus been abolished and the commissioners dismissed. Will that make the Icac become the dream commission which will ban white-collar crime from the country? It is not certain… but it could help. With new people, there are bound to be new mentalities. But will that be enough to reverse the trend?