Shakeel Mohamed, appointed housing and lands minister in November 2024 under Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, has moved public beach access from policy aspiration to active enforcement, conducting field inspections and issuing removal deadlines to property owners blocking coastal passages across Mauritius.
The gap between legal entitlement and practical reality is the operational problem his ministry is now trying to close. Mauritian law is clear: oceanfront properties confer no ownership rights over the public domain in front of them. Yet thousands of beach passages remain effectively inaccessible, blocked by gates, fences, vegetation, signage, and other obstructions installed by private residents, hotel operators, and state-land leaseholders. An estimated 10,000 French retirees, luxury hotels, and other occupants have created de facto privatization of beaches that remain legally public.
Mohamed’s operational approach rests on three concrete mechanisms. His ministry has begun mapping and cataloging public beach access points across coastal regions, with an initial digital map covering La Preneuse, La Mivoie, Tamarin, and Flacq, and plans for systematic expansion to other coastal areas. Signage is being installed to indicate access routes from roads and pathways back to public thoroughfares, making public passages visually incontestable. The ministry is also formalizing right-of-way agreements in sectors where access has become most contested.
The enforcement component has been the most visible. During site visits to Pointe-d’Esny in the southwest and to western locations including La Preneuse, La Mivoie, and Tamarin, Mohamed personally inspected blocked passages alongside officials from the Police, the Special Mobile Force, the Beach Authority, district councils, and his own ministry staff. At Pointe-d’Esny on August 27, 2026, the Special Mobile Force cleared vegetation blocking one access point while the ministry issued notices to residents who had encroached on public domain. Mohamed gave property owners between seven and fifteen days to remove obstacles, with authority to enforce removal administratively and, in certain cases, to revoke leases if compliance is refused.
That hands-on presence revealed a significant operational bottleneck: administrative agencies often know a passage is legally public but hesitate to enforce the rule in practice. Mohamed’s personal appearance on site appears designed to overcome that institutional reluctance.
The problem has deep roots. In 2018, then housing minister Mahen Jhugroo identified the same obstructions at Pointe-d’Esny and announced measures to restore access. Eight years later, Mohamed encountered identical barriers. A citizen petition regarding Balaclava-Pointe aux Piments, which gathered over 2,000 signatures, illustrates how sustained public demand for action has been. That petition cited Article 12 of a 2010 lease with Island Resort Limited, which allows the state to reclaim land for public interest with notice and compensation, and highlighted 8,020 square meters of beach deproclaimed in 2008 and incorporated into a hotel lease. The petitioners also noted that public amenities promised in the 2010 lease, including toilets, parking, kiosks, benches, and plantations, remain absent sixteen years later.
By contrast, the current ministry is now moving toward a regulatory framework. The State Lands (Public Access to the Coastal Domain) Regulations 2026 are in preparation, with public consultation planned. Mohamed has been clear that restoring public domain access does not eliminate rules. He has reiterated bans on vehicles on beaches and condemned waste, unauthorized fires, noise pollution, and certain commercial installations, framing the effort as coexistence rather than confrontation between waterfront owners and the general population.
Mohamed’s position as housing and lands minister gives him substantial administrative leverage over state-land leases, occupations, and right-of-way agreements, making his ministry the primary enforcement vehicle for this initiative. The campaign arrives as Mauritius enters its high summer tourism season in November, which means the practical test of whether cleared passages stay open, and whether promised amenities are ever actually built, is already underway.