Finance Minister Contradicted by BoM’s Statistics

In response to question B/1250 raised on October 24, 2023, at the National Assembly, the Finance Minister stated, “The Bank of Mauritius has informed me that it has not taken out any loans in dollars or any other currency.”

However, figures published by the same Bank of Mauritius in its monthly statistical bulletin suggest otherwise.

Table 7, Sectoral Balance Sheet of Bank of Mauritius, shows loans amounting to approximately Rs 62 billion as liabilities as of end-September 2023.

Table 8, Central Bank Survey, also demonstrates a liability of around Rs 62 billion to non-residents at the same date.

A table on Mauritius’ external debt published on the Statistics Mauritius webpage, NSDP: Economic and Financial Data for Mauritians, also shows that the Monetary Authority – i.e., the Bank of Mauritius – has long-term loans amounting to Rs 62 billion at end-September 2023.

The necessary conclusion is that the Bank of Mauritius does rely on foreign currency loans.

Further, these loans have increased to Rs 76 billion, or around USD 1.7 billion, as indicated in the latest Central Bank Survey on October 27, 2023.

The question then being asked is: Who is lying?

Source: l’Express