Petit Paris residents affected by asphalt plant to be compensated |29 November 2019
Mr Bastienne (Photo: Thomas Meriton)
The cabinet of ministers chaired by President Danny Faure on Wednesday approved recommendations for compensation for the Petit Paris residents who have been affected by an asphalt plant which was operating in the area.
It was the deputy cabinet secretary for legal and institutional affairs, Johnny Bastienne, who said this during a cabinet debriefing yesterday morning at State House Annex. This follows the cabinet meeting on Wednesday where a number of legal and policy memoranda were considered.
The residents had claimed that noise, dust and foul odour from fumes emitted by the plant belonging to the Ministry of Habitat, Lands, Infrastructure and Land Transport (MHLILT) had polluted the area and affected the residents both in terms of physical assets and medically.
As per compensation per person, residents medically affected will be compensated within the range of R10,000 and R60,000 while those affected by the dust pollution will be compensated R10,000 per person. Residents affected by the noise pollution will be compensated R3,000 per person.
Mr Bastienne said that a committee led by the MHLILT was set up in 2018 to look into the compensation issue and up to now the 42 complaints have been considered for compensation by the Seychelles Land Transport Agency (SLTA) among which only ten cases are non-medical. With the majority of complaints being related to medical issues, Mr Bastienne said that the legal department in collaboration with the health department has requested for medical reports on individuals to justify the complaints before they are considered.
The cabinet also approved for Seychelles to join the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Industry which sets out areas of cooperation at regional level to build a diversified and globally competitive base and economies.
In order to achieve the objective of this protocol, member states are to cooperate on industrial matters by developing prioritised developing regional value chain, promoting value addition of goods and process within the region and jointly mobilising resources to support industrialisation.
Through this development of a regional industry protocol, Seychelles is set to strengthen its economy and will ensure that it is driven by industrial development and not based on export of raw resources solely.
Our country is expected to benefit through funding for joint regional industrial projects to support integration and industrial development, technical training to develop interventions through policies that foster industrialisation development, sector specific value chain analysis studies such as Blue economy, in turn allowing for sector specific strategies among others.
The SADC industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap (SISR) was adopted on April 29, 2015 in Harare, Zimbabwe and the aim is to achieve major economic and technological transformation at national and regional levels to accelerate economic growth through industrial development.
Seychelles’ accession to the Convention on the Recognition and enforcement of Foreign Arbitration Awards (New York 1958) was also approved by cabinet and this sets for the courts in Seychelles to recognise verdicts given in a foreign country under the convention likewise of verdicts given in our courts.
Mr Bastienne said that the context of the convention was implemented in Seychelles through the commercial code act 1977. He said that the ratification of the convention will bring more confidence to foreign investors to invest in the country. After verification by President Danny Faure, the accession to the Convention on the Recognition and enforcement of Foreign Arbitration Awards will be forwarded to the National Assembly for ratification.
Cabinet on Wednesday also considered recommendations contained in the report following the 2019 Primary Health Care (PHC) Conference, held at the AVANI Seychelles Barbarons Resort & Spa in July and approved the implementation of the road map.
In the PHC conference stakeholders reflected on how to respond to new and emerging challenges, safeguard the gains of yesteryear and address the priority unmet needs.
Patrick Joubert