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Workers at one of Madagascar's biggest business groups spent a day asking a court-appointed official whether they will still be paid, because the man who owns the company is sitting in a prison cell in Mauritius.
They met Serge Imbeh Jovial at MSA Andakana in Antananarivo, according to a report published on Friday, Sept. 25 by La Vérité Hebdo. A Malagasy court put him in charge of the Sodiat group after its owner, Mamy Ravatomanga, was arrested abroad and could no longer run it.
Three things were on the table. Whether salaries get paid. Whether staff will be sent home on reduced pay while the business slows, which Malagasy law calls technical unemployment. And how far their benefits will be cut, which Jovial said would depend entirely on what money the company has.
He offered one piece of good news. Sodiat gave help to employees' children for the start of the school year, and the day finished with a social gathering intended to keep the two sides talking.
Ravatomanga has been held in Mauritius since November, when the island's Financial Crimes Commission arrested him at a clinic in the town of Phoenix. He faces a provisional charge of conspiracy and two counts of money laundering there, and his Mauritian assets have been frozen.
Madagascar wants him back. A court in Antananarivo issued a warrant for his arrest on money laundering charges on Oct. 16, 2025, weeks after the army removed President Andry Rajoelina, whom Ravatomanga was close to, and the government asked Interpol to issue a red notice.
He is also one of 33 defendants in a separate criminal case at home. It concerns five Boeing 777s that were given temporary Malagasy registration in January 2025 and ended up flying for Mahan Air, an Iranian airline the United States has sanctioned since 2018. Malagasy newspapers have reported that Udaan Aviation, the company at the centre of the case, was linked to Sodiat. Judges adjourned that trial to Oct. 27 because Ravatomanga could not appear.
He has not been convicted of anything in either country.
What his employees are asking about is a group that runs transport, logistics, fuel distribution, media, property and healthcare across Madagascar. Forbes ranked Ravatomanga among the ten wealthiest people in the country in 2017.
Their jobs now depend on how much of it is still worth running.
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