Will the Metamorphosis of the Seychellois Nation be successful this time round? |28 December 2020
Metamorphosis in nature is a complex transformation from a tiny egg into a worm like larva then into a silky pupa stage from which a beautiful butterfly emerges. It is one of nature’s miracle that always baffles scientists’ mind as to how come the butterfly bears no resemblance to a worm unlike in humans where the new born is a copy of the parents.
We watched with great interest recently on SBC TV how the Seychellois nation came into being with the first arrivals and the slavery period some 250 years ago. The book should be more interesting because more details can be accommodated in a book. The thoughts that came to my mind were surely this humble beginning of our nation in the 1870s as slaves to the white man should have made us more prepared for independence when it came in 1976. Instead the Seychellois nation has endured and suffered unimaginable sufferings that must be resolved and cannot be swept under the carpet by the new President and Government appointed by the people for the first time in our history. We will never forget our past but we can take steps to remedy the wrongs of the past and create a new and more prosperous and safe environment for our next generation.
Our metamorphosis from 1976 when we freed ourselves from the shackles of the British Empire should have been completed by 2020 when we should have emerged as a prosperous nation but instead we have languished in the mire of the dictatorship mentality borrowed from Chrewshev of Russia by our past leaders.
Today as the pandemic strikes the world, we find ourselves in a dire situation. Can we survive? Rollen Danny Faure (our last President) and Maurice Loustau-Lalanne (his Vice-Presidential candidate) told us they had a plan for our survival which I hope they give it to their newly acquired friend, our new President Wavel John Charles Ramkalawan.
Thirteenth month salary saga - First of all let us find out who is the idiot who created the idea of a 13th month salary instead of a Performance Bonus when there are 12 months in a year. We know who? The old Roman calendar used to have 10 months in a year of 304 days and the current Gregorian calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII has 12 months made up of 365 days even then we need a Leap Year every 4 years of 366 days because the sun’s orbit around the Earth takes 365.25 days in order to adjust to our daylight patterns. So where did the 13th month come from?
There is no question that this Performance Bonus should have been given a realistic name and be paid this year because the average family depends on this bonus, bearing in mind 40% of our society live below the poverty line. If we have to borrow to pay this bonus then let us borrow because every country in the world is borrowing including the mighty America and many European countries to sustain their nation. There is no question, this bonus must be paid … We know times are hard but when you are poor what option do you have to survive? Do you steal to put food in your stomach? So please stop all the scaremongering, this is not the time for it. When are we going to get someone to come on our SBC TV and tell us not to worry we will get through the Covid-19 period because we got through a Coup D’état when our own people, not a virus stole, robbed, pillaged, raped and devastated our nation and these rich people have their money in off-shore bank accounts and they do not have to worry about food on the table.
Shame on you, PUC management - We live in a vulture-culture where even PUC management wanted to give all employees 5% bonus which means the highly paid managers would get more than R3,000.00 but most of the workers would get less than R600.00 if they were lucky. This is greed, which is worse than Covid-19 because it has been going on in Seychelles for over 40 years. People at the top are very greedy and when they want to make a name for themselves they donate something to our schools or old people and SBC comes and film them to satisfy their swollen ego. We need to create a more just and fair society and if this new Government does not do it, the people will take them out, have no fear about it.
The rich continues to rob from the poor – If you want to know how much money is being stolen from the people of Seychelles read the Auditor’s Annual Reports and you will see how much money the last Government wasted and how much money mysteriously disappeared for example R142,000.00 disappeared from Seychelles Investment Bureau (SIB) when they are supposed to be attracting investment into Seychelles, then R100,000.00 was spent on telephone roaming charges overseas by the deputy of CINEA, then R460,000.00 of coco de mer money went missing in our Seychelles National Parks Authority, apparently they lost 115 coco de mer fruits …..
The Blue Economy – is another farce which people overseas are laughing at us as they continue to refer to Seychelles as a banana republic. This was invented by the same person who said we “grow” fish in Seychelles and he called our marine industry the Blue Economy when the sea is not blue, he must be blind. Most times the sky appears to be blue because of the refraction of the sunlight waves and colour blue has a shorter wavelength and sometimes we perceive even ultra-violet to be blue. But the sea is clear and colourless and when it rains the sky is grey and so is the sea and when you get near the shore the sea appears to be turquoise due to the reflection of the green vegetation on the land so where did he get the Blue Economy name to sell to the world? We even have a Blue Economy Minister, come on guys let us move forward for goodness sake. What are we doing to our children?
"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's”- should now be the code of life we live by because our new President has vowed he will remove politics from our government and get back the wealth stolen from the people by members of the last Government. We hope that sitting next to our 3rd President at the UAE Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi will not change his mind because we will hold him accountable and true to his words. When he was in opposition he was very vocal about getting the money, land and properties stolen from the people to be returned to the people as head of the FPAC, the committee tasked with identifying the money stolen from us including by the Irish. Remember the Irish took our money because someone signed for the money to be released to the Irish. Who was/were that/those person/persons?
Selling SBC, Nation newspaper and Air Seychelles – The time has come to sell off SBC, the Nation newspaper and Air Seychelles and use the money to build houses and increase the pay of the low paid people in our society. So much taxpayer’s money has gone into SBC that they are not making good use of Channel 3 which was very silent during the elections when this channel should have been dedicated to the Elections. Nation newspaper is today profitable after spending a great deal of taxpayer’s money protecting the Government in power and now the time has come to sell NISA. With regards to Air Seychelles, the previous Seychellois/Mauritian management team made a mess of managing Air Seychelles then Etihad came to our rescue. In 2017, Etihad Airways contributed $34 million and in 2018 it injected another $30 million to help Air Seychelles in its transformation plan. The time has come to close down Air Seychelles international operation and flights and just provide an inter-island domestic service. We do not have the money nor the people to compete in a depleting international industry.
Put our money where your mouth is – the time has come for our new President to put our money where his mouth is because we believed him when he asked us to vote for him, after trying for so long to be our President, now he must deliver or step aside. We welcome the departure of US like a bad dream but we must now get value for our votes.
Contributed by:
Barry LaineFCIM, FInst SMM, MCMI, MBSCH
Seychelles Civil Society
The Wishing Well
Anse Des Genets
Mahe, Seychelles
Email: barrylaine@hpcgroup.sc
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Seychelles NATION newspaper.