DEFENDING THE TOURISM INDUSTRY

THE MAIN PILLAR OF OUR ECONOMY

LOCALIZATION: - MYTH OR A REAL BELIEF OF THE GOVERNMENT?
The Ministry of Employment is set to ensure that jobs in the hotels are protected for Seychellois. It sounds like a good and patriotic statement, but the whole procedure being employed is baseless and borders on a joke. It is even an insult to the Seychellois People, the talk at Pirates Arms echoes.

A hotel may be refused the employment of a security guard or a chambermaid because a Seychellois can do that job. Yes they can, but they can also be a Marketing Manager at Air Seychelles, an Accounts Manager at Air Seychelles, a Paris Based Representative at Air Seychelles or a Business Development Manager based in Paris. These Managerial positions are what we should be aiming to have Seychellois occupy. Let foreigners do the menial jobs, but let us be a proud nation managing the workforce of foreigner laborers. We surely have it all upside down. Jocelyne Bonnal at Air Seychelles can have over one hundred local applicants who can do so much better than her. The same applies for all those in the Air Seychelles office in Paris. Let the management staff at HQ Air Seychelles take a promotion and manage the Paris office. Six foreigners exist at that office, let us give them their due notice and send six Seychellois to replace them.

As for the CEO Rajiv, let us advertise the post and see how many will apply for that position even for half his salary if the 10000.00 US Dollars per month is deemed too much for a Seychellois! But give the Seychellois team just a few months and then see the difference at Air Seychelles. Staff morale, the bottom line, loyalty to Seychelles to fill up local rooms and not those in Mauritius - all these will change overnight. We only need the will to force the issue through. Please let us stop trying to localize the simple and menial jobs. We are a willing and able people and we need to see the management positions earmarked for Seychellois.

We need to see some concrete plans from Minister Mondon herself on how the government is planning to localize all these posts mentioned above. Right now, there is only lip service being paid to this issue and we need some decisive action. Is that asking too much from government?

LAND MUST BRING RETURNS FOR SEYCHELLES

Many will recall what Albert Rene and the SPPF Government had to say on the issue of land back in the days of one party state … "Many people who own land have no interest in planting - most people who wish to plant have no land. Government will pass a law which will make it compulsory to declare what development he is carrying out on his land, what plans he had to develop his land and how many acres he is capable of developing. Everyone will be given six months to make this declaration.... If the landowner refuses to develop his land the Government will take over what is not being developed and will redistribute to other people who do not have land... The landowners will be compensated according to the revenue accruing from that land at the time of transfer".


With the arrival of a more liberal economy, government has gone the opposite direction. It has adopted a careless attitude towards the availability of land for sustainable development. Today we have flats left idle and two flats owned by the same person at Eden Island. We learn that Minister Joel Morgan has set aside land for his wife to build flats on state land to rent out and generate personal wealth – at the expense of his fellow Seychellois who are struggling to find decent shelter. We have once productive land, such as Fairyland, Anse Cocos, ex-Choppy's, Therese Island, Conception, Cote D'Or Dauban land, etc… being left idle. No revenue for the country from these vast land tracts, but a culture of speculation. Everyone in the country is upset with such a practice. What is our ‘responsible’ government going to be done about it? People still have no land to cultivate. Yet many have blocks of apartments. Many still do not have a flat, let alone a house... That promise from the Government dates back to 1977... “Judge me by my action”...

ILLEGAL ACCOMMODATION ESTABLISHMENTS

This phenomenon is now becoming a cancer for the local hotels and guest houses. They do not pay a license, they do not pay GST and they benefit on all the marketing efforts being made by the country. What does the law have to say about this? What is the STB doing about this? Can Mr. Peter Moncherry and his team show that they are working in the interest of the legal tourism establishments that pay their taxes to keep them in their jobs? Why do we expect the small Seychellois guesthouses to pay for everything when illegal accommodation is allowed to flourish everywhere? We can now count the apartments at Eden Island that are doubling up as a hotel. The Desroches Villas are being sold without a license. There are today over three hundred rooms being rented out with NO LICENSE. Is that acceptable? This sad state of affairs is a clear signal that the Government has failed its small entrepreneurs. It is now getting VERY SERIOUS! The Judiciary, the Attorney General, Finance and STB must sit together and move fast to halt this growing cancer, if not dismantle the inspectors office at STB as they are of no use as their only mission seems to be the harassment of bona fide small Seychellois hoteliers.