Officials visit land bank projects at Anse Royale and Anse Etoile |13 October 2014

Officials from the Ministry of Land Use and Housing (MLUH) on Saturday visited two ongoing land bank projects at Ste Helene, Anse Etoile and ex-Deltel at Anse Royale.

Led by principal secretary Joseph François from the MLUH, the delegation also comprised officials from the Seychelles Land Transport Agency, member of the National Assembly for the Anse Royale district Dereck Samson and the district’s administrator Rubena Ernesta.

The Ste Helene and Ex-Deltel land bank projects started in 2003 and 2006 respectively. Ex-Deltel is in its second phase of implementation.

“Certain phases of the Ste Helene project have been completed while some are outstanding due to construction contracts which we had to terminate on account of the length of time it was taking to complete the project,” said Yves Choppy, principal secretary for project planning and implementation in the MLUH.
He said before work could resume they had to wait for the right financial situation of the ministry.

At Ste Helene the outstanding roads are being completed and several plots have already been allocated.
At the Ex-Deltel project at Anse Royale major allocation of plots have not yet started except for a few. This is due to uncompleted road constructions which are ongoing.

The Ste Helene project cost R3.7 million and is expected to be completed before the end of this year.
Mr Choppy said both projects experienced delays mainly due to problems with contractors.

For the Ex-Deltel project, road construction was carried out before allocaton of plots compared to the Ste Helene project.

“We have more space to carry out a higher standard project at the Ex-Deltel as its terrain is more difficult where we have had to build retaining walls and drainage work, to name some. Now the plots need to be surveyed for allocation later,” added PS Choppy.
He said the completed phase of this project has cost R4.5million.