Editions de L'Ocean Indien (EOI) is a state-owned company, that is, a company that has been formed with the public funds. The object of this company was to make books available to Mauritian students and the nation as a whole at a low price. This was a very noble cause. During the past 3 decades, EOI had gone through so many ups and downs but never so down!  In an article in l'Hedbo a few weeks ago, the author mentioned EOI is in the red! So true and not surprising when we enquired about it.

Out of the most surprising and drastic events of the last 2 years, here are some of the best.

It is the first time in the history of EOI that an appointeehas so many privileges for doing the hardest job ever:laughing! The super laughter gets an official fee of almost twice of a predecessor, a company car which none before everhad, a mobile phone with the bill in 5 digits!, a laptop and printer to surf on the net and for a family memberto printproject work, a driver of choice to dopersonal works and to attend political and what not meetings. The lucky driver! I think he is top most on the overtime list. 

The General Manager (GM) of a company is the most important key to the success of the company and any investor will choose a most qualified and experienced GM for his company. But when a company is state-owned why this concept is no more applicable? We are the investors! The lack of experience and vision of this GM has brought EOI to a disastrous situation. 

The accounts of the company are available at the Registrar of Companies; people who can have access will notice the sudden downfall of this company in terms of profits and liquidity.

This one is a very funny one. It is the first time that a General Manager steps down to the post of Finance Manager of the company, keeps his salary package and benefits and in a few months time gets a promotion to become a Chief Finance and Admin Manager and gets an increase in pay. We still tolerate such things?

EOI recruited

an Admin and HR Manager in 2004. The poor guy got a salary of only 85% of the GM's salary plus car plus petrol allowance plus mobile phone.  He was the only manager getting more than Rs 30,000. For this guy, there was no salary scale which ended at Rs 25,000., sky was the limit! 

I was perplexed when I came to know what his job was exactly. 

Well, the best is yet to come, an accounts clerk with no qualifications was promoted to the post of accounts officer after an interview where the best candidate was rejected. After only 6 months the same officer was promoted as Senior accounts officer without any interview. The same person is entitled to a responsibility allowance.

As promotion is in fashion in EOI, about 10 other persons got promoted during the last 2 years. One of them, who was in charge of the stores where there were discrepancies all the time, got promoted for doing nothing.

A guy went to an interview for an internal vacancy for a post, despite wearing his best  tie, he did not get the post. A few days back with the climatic changes, he was so suddenly promoted to this post without any interview and got a few benefits as a package. May be it's Christmas at EOI!

I always thought that invoicing on computers was a very delicate and precise job which only a literate person with experience will be able to handle in a crowded environment. I was wrong; at EOI they have the cleaners doing this job! It's a really good thing that they are learning, but where goes the professionalism? And I can only find an exploitation of the most vulnerable in this!

Well, my dear investors, is this how we should invest our money? Mr Sithanen announced in his 2006/2007 budget that SIC would sell all its shares in the retail and commercial business and would concentrate on investments and bigger projects, why this was not the case for EOI?

Note: This blog has been edited to some extent by our editorial team, merely for the sake of clarity and space.