National Council for the Disabled to be managed by administrative team |13 March 2020
The National Council for the Disabled (NCD) will function on a day to day basis now that cabinet, chaired by President Danny Faure on Wednesday March 11, 2020, has approved a proposal for it to be restructured and to be run by an administrative team.
At a briefing session at State House Annex yesterday morning on a number of memoranda considered by cabinet, Marcus Simeon, the chairperson of the NCD, said the creation of a dynamic administration team to oversee the functions of the council on a daily basis will help push through strategic reforms that will come from the board.
He noted that the council, with a proper management team under a chief executive officer, will see that Seychelles becomes more accessible to disabled persons in terms of structural and transportation aspects, among others.
He further noted that the NCD, which is being overseen by a board, is currently being administered by a non-management team. He claimed that with Seychelles being more disabled friendly, it will further be a boost for disabled tourists to visit our country.
Mr Simeon also said that the restructuring of the NCD will also see changes at its training centre for mostly disabled post secondary students at Anse Etoile where there will be a separation between its training aspects and other services being offered.
At the meeting on Wednesday, cabinet also approved amendments to the Tertiary Education Act 2011 thus investing more powers to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) to regulate educational institutional bodies in line with the act.
The chief executive of TEC, Jean-Michel Domingue, said that with the increase in powers, the commission is there as a watchdog of the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development (MEHRD) thus holding the power to register institutions according to principles of the Tertiary Education Act 2011.
Also approved by cabinet on Wednesday was for the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) protocol against corruption (PAC) to be submitted to the National Assembly for ratification.
The deputy secretary for legal and institutional affairs, Johnny Bastienne, said that Seychelles signed a protocol agreement in Malawi in 2001 to support the treaty adopted by African heads of states and governments.
Mr Bastienne said the protocol aims to promote, strengthen and develop anti-corruption mechanisms needed to prevent, detect, punish and eradicate corruption in the public and private sector, promote cooperation in the fight against corruption by member states and harmonise anti- corruption national legislations and policies within the region.
In regards to corruption investigation, Mr Bastienne noted that Seychelles has mandated the Anti-Corruption Commission in line with these protocols to investigate cases of corruption in the country and to take to task those implicated.
Patrick Joubert
