Compensation to be paid to victims of La Misère water pollution |12 March 2020

Minister Loustau-Lalanne speaking during the press conference (Photo: Jude Morel)

Procedures to compensate victims of the La Misère water pollution incident will start as from this coming Saturday.

This was announced by the Minister for Finance, Trade, Investment and Economic Planning, Maurice Loustau-Lalanne during a press conference yesterday at his office in Liberty House.

Around 1400 inhabitants from La Misère and Petit Barbarons were affected by the water pollution during the construction of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan’s palace complex in 2010. The incident occurred after an accident at the sewage plant caused raw effluent to seep into local water sources.

In 2011 Ascon (the Associated Construction & Investments Company), the contractor for the project, agreed to a total pay-out of R99 million after over 90 percent of residents from affected homes accepted the R250,000 offered to each home. This time around the payment will be done individually to each affected member of the household.

“The reason we are meeting is to update the media about the procedures being undertaken to pay for the first cash instalment to the victims of the pollution,” said Minister Loustau-Lalanne.

He added that the R75 million budget which was approved by the assembly last year will be paid in two portions, one this year and the other in 2021. R50,000 will be given to adults and R15,000 will be given to children.

The minister stated that children above eight years old will be regarded as an adult and thus will be given the sum of R50,000.

He also noted that if someone who was on the list has since passed away, the cheque will still be made out in their name but their appointed next of kin will collect on their behalf

The list of payment include four categories which are: residents of La Misère; some residents of Petit Barbarons; school children and teachers affected at La Misère school and students and teachers affected at the Seychelles Tourism Academy.

The minister further explained that the list of beneficiaries came from the Attorney General’s office in January and extensive work was done to make sure that every name that they got was correct and that the money would be going to the right person as the procedure is being done years after the incident happened.

In total 1800 people will receive the compensation and this will be done in three stages where the first stage will include 558 people.

“On Tuesday March 10, we had a meeting with the committee in La Misère who represent the victims and they were given the list of the people being paid in the first stage,” Minister Loustau-Lalanne said.

The payment procedure will begin on Saturday where the residents are asked to go to the La Misère school or Liberty House, first floor, to provide their identification details.

The payment will be done through cheque where details will be filled out digitally and once this step is completed the victims will collect their cheques in a sealed envelope at the Souvenir clinic at an arranged date.

Minister Loustau-Lalanne stated that payment will only begin once they have received all identification details for the first batch of 558 people.

“If we can pay all the 558 people at the same time we will but if we cannot the payment will resume the following day,” he said.

The minister noted that there have been problems which made the procedures challenging as some information was missing like the NIN of the complainants.

“This time the compensation is being done through public funds so we have to make sure that it is not going to someone who does not deserve it,” noted the minister.

He added that one of the most important criteria needed to make sure that the victim’s claim to the money is legitimate is the doctor’s note as well as the information given by PUC to confirm that they were actually affected by the pollution.

Christophe Zialor