SAO meets omnibus operators on inner islands |17 April 2021
The meeting with omnibus operators from the inner islands
The Seychelles Association of Omnibus Operators (SAO) organised a meeting with Praslin and La Digue omnibus operators on Wednesday April 14, 2021.
The meeting, held at the Baha’i Centre at Baie St Anne, attracted 16 operators, of whom 7 came from La Digue.
The SAO chairman, Mervin Elizabeth, was accompanied by his vice-chairman, Davis Pothin. Also in attendance was the representative of Praslin for the Omnibus Association, Christian Pederson.
The chairman started the meeting by welcoming the operators and set out the objective of the meeting which was to give them feedback on the last meeting they had last year, and also to listen to new concerns.
The operators from La Digue expressed that they are facing difficult times as they depend largely on tourists to survive, and they had a verbal agreement with the previous administration to cater for funerals and act as public transport for the inhabitants especially for school children, and most of the time they are doing empty trips which are not financially viable.
However, they are hoping to get some tourists soon.
They asked the chairman to come to La Digue to have a better meeting specifically for La Digue operators as their issues are different from Praslin and Mahé.
The Praslin operators on their side said that business started to pick up with the arrival of some tourists on the island. However they have learned that they should not be carrying tourists as announced in the National Assembly debate while the Seychelles Licensing Authority (SLA) budget was being scrutinised last week.
The question arising is how will they earn their living if they are not allowed to transport tourists, noting that they had been lying idle since last year because there were no tourists and everything was closed down.
Another issue that they have raised is that certain DMCs (destination management companies) are doing staff transfers for some hotels and this point has been put before the association last year and nothing has been done. They have also requested another meeting in two weeks’ time to see what has been accomplished.
The chairman promised that the association will come to La Digue on Tuesday next week and he assured the members that their issues will be put forward to the authorities to see what can be done.
He also stated that the complaint with regard to the DMCs’ involvement in staff transfers has already been put before the SLA and an investigation has been done. This however will be followed up with SLA as the association is having a meeting with them on Tuesday April 27.
He also pointed out that the association has written to the President and the National Assembly as these issues have been going on for more that 10 years now.
Press release from SAO