For once, it was after the Private Notice Question has ended that the heat went up in the National Assembly. The Leader of the Opposition chose to base his PNQ on the collapse of part of the wall at St Jean cemetery. During the question-and-answer process, exchanges between the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister for National Infrastructures were civilised. Though they sent spikes to each other. However, at the end of Private Notice Question, the Prime Minister reacted to a supplementary question of the leader of the opposition on the matter of compensation.
“Refer back to the floods of Port-Louis! People lost their lives,” the Prime Minister said to Xavier-Luc Duval. And he added: “Was there compensation? People died.” In his reply, Minister Bobby Hurreeram said that Government would certainly investigate ways of helping people who lost everything. During the PNQ, Xavier-Luc Duval returned to comments made by PPS Tania Diolle, who had raised the possibility of evacuating residents from the area. Xavier-Luc Duval asked for details of any evacuation plan.
The leader of the opposition also insisted that it was the Metro Express works that were responsible for this situation. He wondered who would pay for the damage. He also asked for a copy of the EIA report on the works.
Minister Bobby Hurreeram insisted that his ministry had to find a long-term solution.
