Corruption in Mauritius

Corruption in Mauritius follows the familiar patterns of state-based corruption, namely government officials abusing their political powers for private gain in the country of Mauritius.

Some Mauritians have taken advantage of the government's corruption. In the local dialect, those who adopt such means are called traceurs or magouilleurs. Familiar methods include falsifying home addresses to get a child into a perceived “star school” or bribing officials to obtain a driver's license.

On 28 May 1979, Member of Parliament Harish Boodhoo called for a general mobilization against corruption in a mass meeting that drew 35,000 people. Cables leaked from the US embassy in 2008 described corruption in Mauritius as "pervasive and ingrained". In May 2020, the European Commission identified Mauritius as a high-risk country, with strategic deficiencies in its anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing regime. According to a former US ambassador to Mauritius, the Mauritian-based Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has lost its credibility. According to Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, Mauritius scored 50 on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"). When ranked by score, Mauritius ranked 57th among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison, the best score was 90 (ranked 1), and the worst score was 12 (ranked 180), and the average score was 43.