Most of us will resume work next week. While the first few days still reflects the festive mood, some of us will already start planning the year ahead.

Talking about plans one major hiccup in the IT world is the planning of leaves. Business continuity usually makes “holiday plans” like an important mission. Colleagues will consult each other before sending their requests higher up the hierarchy. Elements that trouble the planning are the dates of festivals and public holidays. I recall having once sent my request for leave and the human resources department promptly replied, “you have a public holiday in your list”.

Mauritius Public Holidays 2016

Seekers of long weekends should note that this year we have four public holidays that fall on a Monday and two (including New Year) that fall on a Friday. Plan your leaves wisely (^^,) …

Holidays on Monday 1^st and Monday 8^th February makes that month of 29 days interesting.

Thaipoosam Cavadee public holiday controversy

It was earlier announced that Thursday 14^th April will be public holiday, for the celebration of Varusha Pirappu, and also there will be no public holiday for Thaipoosam Cavadee. Such was proposed in the Public Holidays (Amendment) Bill on 11 September 2015. It however led to a controversy. Some calenders of 2016, published prior to 17^th November 2015 will therefore list Varusha Pirappu among public holidays and exclude Thaipoosam Cavadee. Even the Government Information Service (gis.govmu.org) still lists Varusha Pirappu in the document “Public Hols 2016 Final.pdf”.