Abhaye Valabhji donates SUV to NSC |18 March 2017

The presentation ceremony

National Sports Council (NSC) will be able to better serve its VIP guests in the future now that it has received a brand new luxury sports utility vehicle (SUV) from local company Abhaye Valabhji.

A small ceremony was organised at Stad Linite yesterday afternoon when the managing director of Abhaye Valabhji, Anil Valabhji, handed over the keys of the SUV ‒ a SsangYong Actyon‒ to NSC chief executive Giovanna Rousseau.

The SsangYong is a compact SUV built by South Korean automobile manufacturer SsangYong Motor from 2005 to 2011 for the first generation and 2012 to present for the second.

Mr Valabhji said: “Sports is a very important aspect for the country, especially with all the bad influences such as drugs and alcohol. Sports is a way to pull the young people away from those bad influences. So, for us this is definitely the right direction to go, where it is a way of giving back to the people of Seychelles through sports.”

Mr Valabjhi added that it was the NSC who expressed the need for a vehicle more suited to transporting VIPs to formal events and that is when negotiations began for such a donation.

As for Ms Rousseau, she expressed her gratitude to Abhaye Valabjhi for this donation and said the car will help the NSC to give its VIP guests and clients more comfort when being driven around.

The handing over ceremony also saw the presence of the Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga) president Antonio Gopal, along with some staff of the NSC.

SsangYong Motor Company is the fourth largest South Korea-based automobile manufacturer. It is a subsidiary of Indian multinational Mahindra & Mahindra Limited.

S. N.