Sotravic Files Police Complaint After Mare Chicose Blockade

Sotravic filed a police complaint on 18 December 2025 after subcontractors blocked access to the Mare Chicose landfill, halting operations at a site critical to national waste flows. Normal activity resumed that same afternoon, after the complaint was lodged and on-site negotiations ended the unlawful blockade. Waste transfers were running again before the day closed. Authorities have kept a presence at the site since, to prevent any repeat. The dispute pits sanctioned payment arrangements against demands for off-contract settlements. Management has stated publicly that it strictly honours its financial obligations to operators, and that the company's payment agreements are officially approved by the Ministry of Labour. The protesting drivers wanted immediate payments outside the contractual frameworks already agreed and endorsed. The Ministry of Labour has produced no documentation supporting the drivers' claims. Nor have the drivers presented contracts or invoices to substantiate their demands. No official document shows any payment default by the principal operator. The blockade drew media attention through an automotive classifieds platform that relayed the drivers' grievances, but that account contains internal inconsistencies worth noting for anyone assessing counterpart risk. One claim held that certain operators had worked without pay for a full year, a timeline that is mathematically impossible: government awarded the management contract to the joint venture on 28 June 2024, less than six months before the incident. The same publication asserted the principal contractor was entirely unreachable for comment, while simultaneously quoting the company's official defence as broadcast on Radio One. It also referred to complaints filed at both La Gaulette and Cent-Gaulettes, confusing the geography. For fund and facility administrators exposed to Mauritian public infrastructure concessions, the takeaway is twofold. First, contractor payment discipline at Mare Chicose rests, on the documentary record, on Ministry of Labour-approved payment agreements; counterparty diligence should anchor on those approved structures rather than on unverified claims circulating through non-specialist media. Second, the episode shows the continuity risk attached to single-site critical infrastructure: an unauthorised access blockade on a landfill serving national waste transfer flows can halt operations within hours, and remediation here depended on police escalation combined with direct negotiation at the site. Meanwhile, the authorities' continued monitoring signals that the enforcement posture remains active. Contractors and their subcontractor networks operating under the joint venture's mandate should expect scrutiny of both the legality of any future industrial action and the documentary basis of payment claims, particularly where demands fall outside Ministry-endorsed structures. Participants across the waste management chain, from hauliers to the joint venture's administrative staff, now face a clarified baseline: contractual payment mechanisms are the recognised channel, off-contract pressure tactics carry legal exposure via police complaint, and the 28 June 2024 award date caps any plausible arrears narrative well short of the claims being advanced. Whether that documented record will deter similar blockades at other single-site facilities remains the open question.