Govt wants to curb the unemployment rate in Mauritius

The government will not mortgage the country’s future, said minister of Finance Xavier-Luc Duval. We are working on a budget which will be in the interest of all workers and we want to curb the unemployment rate in Mauritius.

He was speaking at a Bank of Mauritius (BoM) event. Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam launched a cheque truncation system at the BoM here on Tuesday. The new system will digitise the processing of cheques at the Port Louis Clearing House (PLCH).

The cheque will be scanned and a digital image sent to the PLCH. The banks will then decide from the images and the signature received to make the payment. Good cheques will be processed and the amount credited to the customer’s account. Bad cheques will be discarded.

BoM governor Rundheersing Bheenick said that the new system will be less time consuming, less costly and will curtail forgery. “This is part of the BoM’s unrelenting quest for innovation and envy of other countries,” added Bheenick.

The implementation of the CTS was highly awaited by financial bodies as cheques still constitute 20 per cent of all non-cash payment in the country. The PLCH processes around 50,000 cheques daily.

The system will be extended to the Accountant General’s Office and the Mauritius Revenue Authority. Also present at the launch was the chairman of the Mauritius Banker’s Association, Ravin Dajee.

Duval further stressed that his ministry would not come up with any situation that could put any sector of the economy at risk and where employers would be forced to lay-off employees.

The minister also requested profitable companies and parastatal bodies to provide a higher compensation scale than the tripartite committee.