New planning authority board appointed |04 March 2015

The Minister for Land Use and Housing, Christian Lionnet, has appointed the board members of the Town & Country Planning Authority, in accordance with the terms of reference provided by the Town & Country Planning Act.

The appointments, which took effect yesterday, are for a period of two years.

The chairperson of board is Hughes Adam and the other members are Wilson Nancy, Sunil Shah, Cyril Bonnelame, Flavien Joubert, Jude Gédéon, Patrick André, Sinha Levkovic, Gabriel Essack, Patrick Lablache, Barry Assary and Ron Felix.   
          
The new board has stronger representation of the private sector, where five members inclusive of the chairman are from the private sector.

The new board of the planning authority is mandated to improve the efficiency and speed of its work so as to deliver a better service to citizens and businesses in Seychelles.

This follows the call by President James Michel during his state-of-the-nation address for the need to improve the ease of doing business in Seychelles.

“We shall continue to encourage all Seychellois to be enterprising.  Encourage everyone to work hard.  We must create a better environment for doing business in our country. Create more employment.  Increase productivity.  Let us work together to remove obstacles that hinder our people.  Many people complain that their principal sources of frustration are the Licensing Authority, the Planning Authority, or the Customs.  We really must get ourselves in order! ”said President Michel in the address.

The President said that while Seychelles ranks 85th out of 189 countries where it concerns ease of doing business, the government’s strategy is to improve this rank and place Seychelles among the 30 best countries for doing business in the next five years.