Employees who no longer come to work, customers who no longer travel, administrations with absent subscribers, unpaid invoices: in danger, Mayotte businesses are begging the government to support them, on the eve of a fifth week of road blockages in the department. Tuesday, February 20, twelve roadblocks run by citizen groups protesting against insecurity and irregular immigration remained in place, in the center and south of the archipelago, despite calls to suspend the movement.
It is bogged down, in an economy already in dire straits due to the recent accumulation of crises – Covid-19, water crisis, chronic insecurity, uncontrolled demographic explosion in the small territory of 374 km2.
” It is a disasteralerts Carla Balthus, president of Medef in Mayotte. The Mahoran economy is slowly dying. After the big difficulties of 2023, the year 2024 is over. We’re not going to get out of this. Some business leaders are at the end of their rope and psychologically damaged. »
“It’s definitely a stop”
Partial activity compensation claims already concern more than 5,000 employees out of 21,000 in the local private sector. And the losses in turnover since the start of the dam movement on January 22 would oscillate between 80% and 100% depending on the case, estimates the employer manager in the 101e French department. Certain sectors – bus companies, garages – have also been directly affected by acts of vandalism during episodes of violence between “intervillage” gangs.
“I blocked the money I owe to my suppliers to pay my loans and my chargestestifies Salim Maoulida, boss of a small electricity company with four employees. After two years of water crisis, it’s completely over. » Two of his technicians resigned, one having returned to France, traumatized after being recently attacked on the road, and the boss had to take over the construction sites. “We have difficulty planning, daring to invest. Insecurity means that there is always stress, at work and inside the house”adds Mr. Maoulida, who decided to settle his wife and children in Reunion.
In their letter of February 14 to local elected officials, which confirmed the plan to abolish land rights in Mayotte, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and his overseas delegate, Marie Guévenoux, promised a simple sentence that “the government will ensure that support measures are put in place for businesses to support them in the current economic context”. Mme Guévenoux will be invited to clarify them during a trip to Mamoudzou planned just after the installation of the new prefect on February 24.
You have 63.92% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.