Sleeping at the Desk: What One Civil Servant Reveals About a Failing State
By The State of the Mind — 16 August 2025 | Vayu Putra
In Mauritius, the civil service was once heralded as the machinery of the nation. It promised continuity, professionalism, and an ethic of service above politics. Today, it too often mirrors the very dysfunction it was designed to prevent. The case of Sheereemattee Ji — a senior human resources manager filmed sleeping at her desk, accused by her colleagues of hoarding office stationery for personal use, and still drawing both a state pension and a full salary — is more than an individual embarrassment. It is a window into a system hollowed out by complacency and drained of accountability.
A Bureaucracy Beyond Retirement
Sheereemattee Ji had officially retired from the civil service, securing her pension in accordance with public-sector rules. Yet she returned to a salaried post, a double-dipping arrangement that is legal but corrosive. For the younger generation of graduates unable to secure stable employment, such recycling of posts feels less like efficiency and more like the entrenchment of privilege. When civil servants become irremovable — rotating between departments, drawing salaries long after their productive years — the state payroll becomes a monument to inertia rather than a tool of governance.
Mauritius devotes close to 60 per cent of its recurrent expenditure to salaries and benefits. The IMF and World Bank have repeatedly warned that this ratio is unsustainable for a small island state facing debt, ageing demographics, and rising import bills. Each unproductive official absorbed into the system magnifies the burden: more taxpayer rupees diverted from investment into wages that yield little measurable output.
The Internal Revolt
What makes Sheereemattee Ji’s case significant is not merely the viral videos of her sleeping through office hours, but the fact that her own colleagues wrote letters denouncing her conduct. These letters, signed and circulated within the Ministry of National Infrastructure, speak to a quiet revolt inside the bureaucracy. They are not the work of opposition politicians or investigative auditors, but of ordinary civil servants frustrated by a culture of impunity.
The allegations — pilfering paper reams and stationery, treating public resources as private stock — are banal at first glance. But they cut to the heart of a deeper malaise: the normalisation of petty abuse. When staff at the bottom of the hierarchy witness senior managers openly disregarding rules, morale collapses. Laziness becomes contagious. Corruption, like rust, spreads from the neglected corners of the machine until the entire structure weakens.
A Payroll That Consumes the Nation
Mauritius’ bloated civil service is not simply an economic inefficiency; it is a political instrument. Successive governments have treated appointments, transfers, and promotions as patronage. Jobs become rewards for loyalty, not recognition of competence. The result is an inverted meritocracy in which those who resist political servitude find themselves sidelined, while those who comply enjoy lifelong job security.
The numbers are stark. The 2025 national budget allocates more to salaries than to infrastructure, health, or education investment combined. Despite this, public hospitals face shortages, schools rely on outdated facilities, and infrastructure projects are perpetually delayed. The very ministry where Sheereemattee Ji draws her salary — National Infrastructure — has seen chronic under-delivery of promised projects, from stalled housing estates to unfinished road works.
The Psychology of Impunity
Why does such behaviour persist? Part of the answer lies in the psychology of impunity. For decades, the civil service has been portrayed as untouchable — insulated from scrutiny, protected by unions, and shielded by complex disciplinary procedures. Dismissals are rare; accountability almost non-existent. In such an environment, the line between right and wrong blurs. Sleeping at one’s desk ceases to be a dereliction of duty and becomes a tolerated ritual of the workplace.
This is not unique to Mauritius. Around the world, post-colonial states inherited bureaucracies designed more for control than for service. The colonial template prioritised hierarchy, secrecy, and permanence — values ill-suited to the demands of modern governance. Independence did not reform these structures; it merely transferred them into new hands. The result, half a century on, is a bureaucracy that often resists innovation and accountability.
A Nation Held Hostage by Its Own State
Sheereemattee Ji is not an isolated figure. She is the symbol of a larger problem: a state that consumes its own people’s wealth while delivering diminishing returns. In a high-income economy on paper, 40 per cent of Mauritian households live paycheque to paycheque. Youth unemployment remains stubbornly high. And yet the state’s recurrent wage bill rises year after year, defended by politicians who rely on civil servants as a guaranteed voting bloc.
The scandal is not that one manager sleeps at her desk. The scandal is that a nation cannot wake from the same slumber.
Editorial Reflection
Mauritius stands at a crossroads. To cling to the old bargain — jobs for life in exchange for docility — is to condemn future generations to stagnation. Reforming the civil service is politically costly, but postponing it is economically suicidal. The courage shown by staff who denounced Sheereemattee Ji should be recognised as the beginning of a necessary conversation: who, exactly, does the state serve?
For if the bureaucracy exists merely to serve itself, then Mauritius is not a republic but a pension scheme with a flag.
