Last year, a Mauritian politician raised eyebrows in Britain when he told a political rally that ‘England has agreed to pay us a compensation’ to the tune of ‘many billions of rupees’ as part of the deal to hand over the Chagos islands to Mauritius. Still, a billion Mauritian rupees only converts to around £17 million, so observers were none the wiser about the financial provisions of the still-secret agreement between the two countries.
If the deal goes through, Britain will be paying a king’s ransom to give away sovereign territory to a foreign power with no rightful claim to it
Now we know that ‘many billions of rupees’ also means ‘many billions of pounds’. This week, it was reported that the 99-year lease for Diego Garcia, which hosts the world’s most important military base, will cost Britain £9 billion, or almost a fifth of the annual defence budget. Mauritius, faced with a large budget deficit, has torn up the original agreement, concluded under a previous government, in order to ask for more money. Instead
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