The prime minister of Mauritius says he has also become finance minister

Mauritius’s new prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, was sworn in this month after winning an election by a large margin. On Friday, he said that he will keep the job of finance minister for himself to help keep a close eye on the economy.

“We are auditing the economy to see how badly the previous government destroyed it,” Ramgoolam told reporters in Port Louis, the country’s capital, after he had sworn in other ministers.

The experienced politician came back to power as prime minister ten years after his last departure. This was after his Alliance du Changement (ADC) alliance won 60 of the 62 national assembly seats in a landslide.

This week, Ramgoolam, who is 77 years old, said he was going to check out the state finances.

He had been prime minister before, from 1995 to 2000 and again from 2005 to 2014.
Ramgoolam started a program in 2006 to cut down on red tape and make taxes easier so that the $10 billion economy could grow beyond exports of sugar, textiles, and tourists.

The country, which has about 1.3 million people and markets itself as a link between Africa and Asia, has grown as an offshore financial center since then. The World Bank has regularly ranked it as the easiest place in Africa to do business.