Unaffected by power or the big office, it was the same Shakeel Mohamed who answered our questions on the current labour situation. Simple, open, uncompromising when he talks about the press and rather mischievous at times, he also offers his views on the nikah and Muslim Personal Law. You might even think he condones polygamy… if you did not read between the lines.

● The current labour situation is not brilliant is it? You are sitting on a volcano.

If you mean that the workers of Mauritius are so warm and that the warmth emanating from that volcano is the warmth of the workers, I agree.

● I’d like to look at it with the same positivity but the job losses in the textile sector do not allow me to.

Actually, to be very precise, from January to June 2010, in the textile factories, there have been no more than 110 job losses.

● The figures I have tell a different story. In New Island Clothing alone 120 people have lost their job: 75 Mauritians and 45 expats.

And all of them have been redeployed, already.

● All 120?

Yes, out of the 120, there are 70 Mauritians and the rest are expatriates. My priority is of course all workers but within that priority, Mauritians are my priority. And, those Mauritians have been taken up by Candy Tex Mauritius Ltd. All of them. Even the foreigners have been offered the possibility of working at Candy Tex Mauritius. So we can’t speak of job losses as such. Let us say there has been a change of job location, a different company, a different geographical area. When I hear of a member of the opposition wanting to put a parliamentary question about job losses last week, and then he doesn’t turn up in Parliament, I know that he knows the answer.

● And what IS the answer?

The answer is very simple. I mean in the textile and tourism industry- we are not experiencing job losses to the extent of saying that the situation is very bad. We are far from the days when, from 2001 to 2004, 45,000 people lost their jobs in textile factories. We are far from the days of the then minister of Finance, now leader of the opposition, when more than 16,000 workers lost their jobs in 2004 alone! When I say ‘lost’ I mean really lost because none of them was re-deployed. Now we’re talking about 115, and out of these 115, most of them are being re-directed and re-deployed to another factory.

● You were lucky in this case, because there was a factory that took them on. But that’s not the end of it, is it? Because there are still other companies that seem to be in difficulty.

There are other companies that are in difficulty, but then again, as I’ve said, it’s so easy for a company to come forward and say, “Well, you know, we are going to reduce our workforce for economic reasons.” When I listen to companies saying this and I go, “Alright, well what are the economic problems?” They are very surprised when I ask and some even think that I have no right to put that question to them.

● Do you?

Of course because if, for instance, New Island Clothing wants to reduce its workforce for economic reasons and pay the workers who have been made redundant according to the law, because it’s an economic reason, they need to prove to me that it’s an economic reason.

● And how do they do that?

Through giving me access to their books. That’s what I’ll do for all the companies that come forward and say, “There is an economic reason”.

● Is the euro crisis not an economic reason?

I’m sorry, I’ll give you a simple example. About three years ago, New Island Clothing made more than Rs 35 million profit and, two years later, they are reducing their workforce. Because they have overextended themselves and invested in Madagascar. Because the Ciel group has invested in other places, do Mauritian workers have to suffer because of their investment?

● The criticism of the unions is that you wait until they sack workers and then you go and investigate. You are not doing enough to prevent job losses. You wait for the lay-offs and then you go and tell them, ‘Wait, show me the books and I want to know if you have real problems’.

That’s all I can do according to the law. It is not the role of the ministry of labour and employment to go and spoon-feed the company to make sure it doesn’t close down. I cannot go and give them lessons in management. The role of government is to facilitate business and job creation as well as stop companies from doing anything that is illegal. Having said that, at the level of the ministry of Finance, there is a committee that has been set up to make sure that the euro “problem” does not cause problems. The committee has already been set up and is already working on it.

● What is this committee going to do in concrete terms?

In concrete terms, they are basically going to, as you said, monitor those companies which are in difficulty to prevent lay-offs.

● Through the stimulus package?

The situation has gone beyond the scope of the stimulus package. As I’ve heard from many quarters, the issue is not the stimulus package the issue is getting orders from abroad. Now, if there are problems abroad, they do not get orders. As countries tighten their spending, we are going to get fewer orders. As the minister of Labour, I cannot go and tell these countries, ‘You know, you shouldn’t adopt those policies because my factories aren’t selling.’

● Is your aim to stop the lay-offs of the workers?

My aim is to stop the unlawful and unreasonable laying off of workers and see to it that the rights of the workers are respected. I work within the parameters permitted by my ministry. But there is a misconception. I do not know why. Is it simply because the press wants to look for news?

● You think we invent layoffs or maybe sack 120 workers to make news?

Well sometimes I wonder when I hear a question of the sort, which basically says, ‘Well, what are you going to do to stop people from being laid off, in concrete terms?’ What do you want me to do? The only thing I can do in “concrete terms” is to make sure that when a worker is laid off, he is getting his compensation according to the law.

● But that’s just it. The law has changed to make it easier for an employer to sack his employee. Instead of three months, your government has reduced the notice to one month. So it seems to be a lot easier to lay off workers.

You said yourself “It seems to be easier”. It’s a question of perception. When you look at the new labour legislation, to put someone out of a job, you need to follow exactly what is provided for in the law. You cannot sack someone for no reason at all. If you have a company that has an economic problem, you have to establish that there is indeed an economic problem. What I am also doing at the level of my ministry is retaining the services of a financial analyst to help at the level of the national remuneration board on salary compensations etc. and also to go through the books of the company to make sure that there is no mismanagement.

● And I suppose you’re allowed to do that.

Of course I’m allowed to do that. The burden of proving that the termination of employment is for economic reasons is on the employer. So, for every dismissal, I have to be convinced that it is for economic reasons. When you say that the law is less beneficial to the employee than to the employer, it is a question of interpretation and appreciation. One has to be able to make use of all the provisions of the law intelligently. There are many things that are said in this country which aren’t necessarily true every time. And the danger here is the press when they just pick up on what is said and make it a news item without any evidence or verification. That’s where we have a population that is wrongly informed, because the press has been negligent in not verifying.

● Are we not verifying with you? We are getting the information from the horse’s mouth!

Yes, but you are harping on about job losses, when there aren’t any.

● People have lost their jobs, I have not invented that, and other workers are on strike aren’t they?

Strike? What strike?

● There are 163 Indian workers on strike in Texto. You are not suggesting the press has invented that too, are you?

There are 163 Indian workers who have violated our laws and you are not even condemning them?!

● Tell me why I should.

O.K. I’ll tell you: The workers from Texto have decided to strike because they do not have overtime. Which of our laws states that an employee has to get overtime madatorily? If a company doesn’t have orders and therefore cannot give overtime, how can we force the employer to give overtime? It’s very simple. If there is a possibility of overtime, it is in the interest of the business person to give overtime to produce more, sell more and make money himself. But if there are no orders and the Indian workers decide to stop work for such an illegal reason, I am of those that will not tolerate that. And I have given strict instructions: if they don’t understand, I’ll facilitate their repatriation. You see, the fact is, I love to see expatriates coming to work here. But, we have laws, and as minister of Labour, I’ve never had so many problems with local workers as I’ve had with foreigners. In Mauritius, we give foreign workers the right to join a trade union to fight for their rights. It is a huge element of our labour laws that there is no discrimination between local and foreign workers. As far as I’m concerned, if you can’t adhere to the laws, go home.

● Why are we importing labour then? Apart from the problems you are stating, don’t we have enough people unemployed, poor and squatting on government land?

There is a huge problem of mismatch! I’ll give you an example. Just now I received “Thon des Mascareignes”. They tell me they have a problem – and this type of problem does not only concern them, but the construction sector as well. They want to recruit people to work in their factory. They have gone through the empowerment programme and have had 300 names given to them from the database. They called those 300 job seekers. Only 100 people were interested. Out of the 100, only 21 went for the interview. And out of the 21, only 4 showed up for work.

● Why is that?

1: they did not want to work for 45 hours, 2: they did not like the smell, 3: they would prefer a job in the government. The big illness is that many Mauritians want to work in the government. Even though they could get a better job, with a better salary, in the private sector.

● But they’d actually have to WORK in the private sector! And there is the perception of job security.

What security? If you do your job wrongly and action is taken against you, you are out! So this conception that, as a civil servant, I can come to work or not and nothing can happen to me is a thing of the past.

● So basically you are happy with the labour situation?

Wouldn’t you be? Between January and June 2010, we’ve had in the tourism and textile sectors approximately 210 job losses, in spite of all the crises we have been “blessed” with. To put that in perspective, between 2001 and 2004, without any crises, we lost more than 42,000 jobs in the textile sector over 4 years. You did not raise any alarm then.

● That was when Aneerood Jugnauth was Prime minister?

Yes, and Paul Bérenger was minister of finance. I was in the Parliamentary committee of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and I know exactly what was done by the previous regime, which is basically not much. All their efforts were concentrated on getting Jayen Cuttaree to become Director General. So, as far as I’m concerned, in spite of all the crises we have had for the past 5 years, we have managed to steer away from all problems.

● Going back to the foreign workers, the reason you’re telling me we’re hiring so many of them is…

Because of a huge mismatch. Many Mauritians don’t want to work in textile factories because they do not feel secure in canning, it’s the work environment, the smell, the working hours… a lot of Mauritians do not like working at night, that’s a fact, as opposed to many of the people in the countries in competition with us.

● What about the construction sector?

In the construction industry, there are not enough workers that are skilled. There is an acute shortage of skilled builders, electricians, pipe fitters etc. We are importing electricians by the bucket load and bricklayers too.

● You mean our people are not even trained to be bricklayers?

Our people not only do not want to go and work, because it is a heavy-duty job, but when it comes to technicians and electricians, we do not have enough workers trained in that field.

● If there is a lack of trained people, doesn’t that mean that there is a lack of training opportunities?

The opportunities are there but the scope has to be widened – it has to be extended to those who do not have secondary education.

● And for the time being that’s not the case.

For the time being basically it is very difficult for someone with no secondary education at all to get access to training. And in my opinion such training, such skills, should be open to a lot of the youngsters who do not even have their CPE, but who have the potential to be excellent workers.

● How many job vacancies are there as we speak?

There are more than 20,000 vacancies in the private sector! But Mauritians don’t want to do hard jobs. If they did, we could find jobs for each and every one of them. And there are training possibilities. What more do you need?

● How about the public sector?

We talk about having to reduce wastage, to be more efficient, so does that mean the public sector is going to become a fat cat and keep on recruiting? People have to understand this people have to make an effort. People come to see politicians and tell them, “Give me a job.” How do we do that? They have to understand the procedures.

● Is that what you say to your agents and the people who worked for you during the election?

That’s what I say to all of them. I show them the way to the Mauritius Institute of Training and Development (MITD) and tell them to get trained, acquire skills and apply for one of the 20, 000 vacancies on the list.

● And who will work for you in your next campaign?

As an agent? You mean that when agents work for elections they are supposed to get something?

● Don’t they?

Most of them do it through conviction. When my agents ask me for jobs for their sons and daughters, I try to facilitate their access to jobs. They did not know about the facilities available to them. Once you give them the knowledge, they do not become dependant on politicians – they are empowered.

● The last couple of weeks, talk about Cehl Meeah and Shenaz has raised questions again about the concept of the nikah. I know you once defended Muslim Personal Law which allows polygamy. What are your views?

What do you mean?

● It’s okay for a Muslim to be polygamous?

If the law of his religion allows him to do that, yes.

● But does Islam really allow a man to have more than one wife?

If the women have no objection, where is the problem? There are conditions that have to be adhered to.

● One of the conditions is that a man must treat all his wives in exactly the same way – emotionally, economically and otherwise. Do you think a human being is capable of doing that?

This is not for me to decide, but for God. Whenever you have those kinds of debates that are brought about in the name of defending women…

● I’m not defending women. I’m talking about equity. Would YOU take a second wife?

Heavens, no!

● Because you are human and therefore would not be able to treat them equally?

(laughs) No – because I’ve got a perfect wife and the reason why my father didn’t have a second wife is because my mother is perfect. Seriously, I would never be able to keep my promise to God, to treat everyone equally. I cannot do that. The conditions imposed by Islam are very difficult, if not impossible to meet.

● If you can’t meet these conditions, what makes you think that other men can?

It’s for God to judge them, not me. The beauty of Mauritius is that everyone is free to practice their religion. We should never question such practice. Doing so is itself undemocratic.

Interview by Touria PRAYAG