Silver Bank Scandal: 62 Mauritians to Lose Rs 358M in Deposits

Opposition MP Joanna Bérenger has renewed calls for accountability over the Silver Bank scandal, revealing that 62 Mauritian savers stand to lose a combined Rs 358 million in deposits, with compensation capped at just Rs 300,000 per person.

Bérenger, a member of the Front Militan Progresis (FMP), the progressive alliance that forms part of the parliamentary opposition, shared her findings on Facebook on Saturday 24 October after finally receiving a response to a parliamentary question she had submitted six months earlier.

She said she had to repeatedly follow up with the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the National Assembly before receiving a reply to question B/405, originally filed on 21 April. The delay alone, she argued, reflects how seriously the government has handled the affair.

The figures she obtained are stark. Of the 62 Mauritian depositors affected, only seven will recover their money in full, because their savings happened to fall below the Rs 300,000 compensation ceiling. Everyone else will receive at most Rs 300,000, regardless of how much they actually deposited. Bérenger argues this is fundamentally unjust because, in her view, the Bank of Mauritius, the country's central bank and financial regulator, bears direct responsibility for the collapse through failures of oversight.

The losses extend well beyond individual savers. Bérenger says the Mauritian state itself will lose Rs 906 million as a result of the Silver Bank failure, significantly more than the Rs 500 million figure previously cited by the Prime Minister. When all local institutions and savers are counted together, the total domestic loss reaches Rs 1.9 billion. Foreign investors and creditors face even larger losses of Rs 5.5 billion, bringing the total collapse of Silver Bank to an estimated Rs 8.1 billion.

Silver Bank was a Mauritius-based bank that failed under circumstances that have attracted sustained political controversy. Critics have long argued that the Bank of Mauritius, which is responsible for licensing and supervising banks operating on the island, failed to act early enough to protect depositors.

What this means for affected savers and the public: Anyone who deposited more than Rs 300,000 with Silver Bank will not be fully reimbursed, even though regulators were reportedly aware of problems at the institution. The government's own financial exposure is now confirmed to be nearly double what was previously disclosed. With total losses across all parties reaching Rs 8.1 billion, this is one of the largest banking failures in Mauritius in recent memory. Bérenger's intervention signals that opposition pressure on the government and the Bank of Mauritius to explain their conduct is unlikely to ease.

Source: ION News