Wealth (and the culture it engenders in its wake) is the answer to many of the problems in Mauritius. People become immune to the many ills mentioned in these posts if they are economically secure. If they have reasonably well-paid jobs (it generally does not have to be that much - just enough not to worry about the morrow and fair prospects for their children), there is a good probablity that they would be decent, honest and hard working people. If I have such a stake, I sure as hell am not going to jeopardise that and expose my job and family by taking bribes or do some other petty criminal misdemeanours. I would not bother to haggle just to save a few cents here and there, I'd feel more friendly, generous, civilised and well-disposed towards other people when I have resources to spare. This is what economic wealth allows people to do.
On the other hand, in Mauritius, jobs are hard to come by, pay is lousy and the future uncertain, people take what they can now and often dispensed with niceties apart to their close ones because they are in survival mode so to speak. Mauritians are from this perspective no different from other people. They need to look after themselves and their family first even if in the longer term this results in a somewhat dysfunctional society. This is a perfectly normal response to an imperfect state of affairs.
This talk of skin tax is really nonsense. Rich countries have their own 'unfair' rules and regulations to restrict immigrant in-flow. Mauritius is acting no differently - come in if you want but give us some of your money. If this is unfair so is the western rules for immigration control.By the way, if you have a few millions, you can jump the queue. that's just part of the rules too.
As to the tendency of mautitians to be dishonest. make the next generation economically secure and this trait disappears like a puff of smoke. There may be no hope for the current generation of 'dishonest' people. The damage is already done and too deep. That is their way of surviving and habits die hard (With the enlargement of the euro zone, I have sometimes wondered why some european people do not change their 'dishonest' habit of playing the system when they enter the richer western european countries. They don't because that is how they operated in their own economically poorer countries. Dishonesty is not peculiar to Mauritians).
Mauritius stuck in the middle of an ocean and no other natural resources to speak of apart from the beauty of the island itself does not sound like a great proposition for wealth creation. So I can't see much prospect of future improvement. The mauritian people are always see-sawing between some no-so-bad times and bad times. It is a miracle that there are no more serious crimes apart from petty thieving, annoying corruption, dirty streets, mis-management of their natural resources and lack of civility. Tell me which of these is not tied with money?