Have our politicians swallowed the suicide pill? |12 February 2022
The SBC TV evening news on Sunday February 6, 2022 gave us a good indication that our politicians may have swallowed the suicide pill. As with President James Michel before, President Wavel Ramkalawan once again representing the Seychelles archipelago was shown in the news preaching and lambasting the richer nations for failing to contribute funds to the low lying small island states (Sids) such as Seychelles to support and stave off the onslaught of sea level rise. This is not the first time the President of Seychelles has stood up at world conferences and called for support for Seychelles to combat the inevitable sea level rise catastrophe we have to face in the not too distant future. This time it was the turn of President Wavel Ramkalawan at the 35th Ordinary Session of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to spout out the dangers facing Seychelles as the sea level rises. In the past President James Michel sang the same chorus.
Then low and behold the next news item on the same SBC TV news reel that night showed Minister Antony Derjacques and his entourage showing the media how the road leading to our international airport is going to be widened into 3 lanes and he announced that work will start soon on enlarging and improving facilities at our international airport which is located in Pointe Larue on reclaimed land at sea level. People are asking how come our President is begging for funds from overseas donors to combat sea level rise in Seychelles then at the same time we are doubling the area of the international airport at Pointe Larue which is at sea level when in 2004 we had live fish gasping for air on the runway of our international airport and that was during the occasion of only the tail end of a far distant tsunami and now we want to expand this airport at sea level. People are asking who is doing the thinking in our government.
Well, I am as confused as anyone else in trying and get my head round this kind of thinking because as far as I am concerned our various Presidents have never wasted an opportunity to tell the world Seychelles need funds to save us from the onslaught of sea level rise but then we continue to locate our essential services at sea level. This is suicidal and it goes against any normal thinking by any person with a sound mind. We are blessed with flat faced mountains where some of our essential services could be moved to and yet we concentrate all our eggs in the Victoria basin banquette at sea level. What the hell are our politicians doing? This makes some of us believe that during meetings of ministers at State House, someone is putting suicide pills in the water bottles on the conference table because how else can you fathom out that we have some brilliant ministers in the current government compared to the untouchables in the last government and yet our current highly intelligent ministers continue to retain and build more of our essential services at sea level when they know very well that sea level rise is not a dream or a fantasy but a reality that will shortly bite us on the butt.
Whenever our Presidents attend a European Union (EU) or African Union (AU) or UNESCO or the Sea Level Rise Foundation, the same chorus is sung about sea level rise but no action is being taken. To make matters worse, we are told that a fuel pipe runs along the highway from Seypec in Victoria all the way to the airport to provide fuel for the aircraft. Surely this pipeline should have gone along the coastline from SEYPEC to the Airport both of which are on the same shoreline. Who is the brain behind this ridiculous venture? So far not one government department has stood up and objected to our essential services being located at sea level.
May be I am being pedantic and obnoxious in my old days but can anyone show the people of Seychelles what is being done to save our skin from sea level rise? All we see is a few rock armouring being placed here and there and a few sea walls being increased in height and nothing else. The only thing our Presidents have been good at so far is to go overseas and cry on our friend’s shoulders and come back with a donation or two. Come on let us take the bull by the horn and create our own safe environment with the resources we have at our disposal or we sell some of the extra assets we have and are wasting away and we use the proceeds to build our resilience to sea level rise. IDC alone can produce enough funds we need to prepare us for the evil day.
Let’s put the poor performance of our politicians on one side for now and let us look at the leading businesses in Seychelles. What are they doing to mitigate sea level rise and continue to provide us with essential services? Are they waiting on the government to get an EU grant or an AU grant or a donation from a benefactor to help us protect our essential services from sea level rise? For example, Cable & Wireless claims no one knows Seychelles better so why has Cable & Wireless not moved its telephone exchange that handles land lines, TV and mobiles out of Victoria which is at sea level to the mountains? Why has Airtel recently built a new HQ on reclaimed land at Perseverance which is at sea level and then claim it has the latest equipment. Even the latest equipment will not work under water. Then there is Intelvision, what is it doing about moving their exchange from sea level in Providence up the mountain?
What about our Central Bank and other banks? Is our paper money waterproof or at least water resistant? Of course not and the cash dispensing machines will they still work under water even if you have the right code? In the event of a sudden gush of sea level rise, not even as big as a tsunami, Victoria will be flooded, people will be looting the shops and the police will make several arrests. We have seen this happen in many countries and we are not much different when such a catastrophe manifests itself. Then when the looters are arrested and are taken to the Victoria Police Station, are the holding cells water proof and above sea level if we disregard the poor state of facilities on offer reported recently?
If the holding cells are water proof, the next day when the arrested persons are taken to Ile du Port to the new Magistrate Court will the judge’s chair be above the water line for the hearing session to begin? Then next door in the Supreme Court will Chief Justice Govinden attired in his flamboyant gown, be floating at his bench, and where will the lawyers sit? There will be no electricity because PUC generating station is at sea level at Roche Caiman, so the cash dispensers will not work anyway and people will go bananas. The solar panel farm on Ile Romainville will be under water and dead, the wind turbines will turn but the supply will be cut off due to short circuit, SPTC buses will not be running but if you have a small boat then you could get around and look for your lost loved ones in the mayhem and confusion and some SBC standby generators may be functioning but if SBC have moved to their new 7 storey building in Union Vale built at sea level then no radio nor television service will be available and people will panic. Someone at DRDM once told the media that in the event of a tsunami they would contact people by mobile. Clearly this person does not know how mobile phones work. Now is the time for DRDM to come out with a plan of action to save us, they have a new intelligent boss.
People are also asking why didn’t President Danny Faure, following his mini-submarine excursion under our ocean to witness at first hand the effects of climate change, start the ball rolling to mitigate the effects of sea level rise on Seychelles. People are also asking where is Ambassador Ronald Jean Jumeau, our roving ambassador in New York. Is he still in New York and why has his knowledge and influence not been taken into consideration? Where is his contribution towards making it safe for the Seychellois nation to survive sea level rise? Why is he silent and if he is not silent then why are our various Presidents and Planners not listening to him, after all he is or was our representative at United Nations or has he abandoned us for a better post as SIDS DOCK ambassador? Our members would like to hear from him, because he has a great deal of experience in these matters.
If you were a donor of financial assistance to mitigate the impending catastrophe of sea level rise to Seychelles would you not question why is it that the Seychelles government continues to build our essential services at sea level and why has it not taken any step to relocate our essential services above sea level? Like this article is saying it is beyond belief that our government continues to waste our money on projects which will not survive sea level rise and put our lives at risk. The Seychelles Meteorological Authority (SMA) has been monitoring sea level rise and they have witnessed gradual increase in sea levels annually. We have limited land mass which means sea level rise is an existential threat to our survival. It threatens to submerge several islands below sea level because it takes only one metre in sea level rise to destroy many of our low-lying coralline islands and inhabited coastal regions on the inner granitic islands. This will cause up to 70 percent loss of our country's total land mass. We have around 85 percent of our country's development sitting on coastlines which includes the highway and the International Airport which means rising sea levels will be catastrophic.
The politicians in this government are failing to make provisions for our survival and politicians in the last government not only failed the people of Seychelles but they also filled their pockets with our money we entrusted them to safeguard for us. Once again members of Seychelles Civil Society (SCS) call on this government to prepare and publish a Plan of Action on what needs to be done now and in the near future to ensure we are ready to meet the impending sea level rise and we ask SBC TV to start producing some programmes on how we are going to prepare ourselves to mitigate sea level rise. We do not want programmes where people just talk, we want to see programmes of actions being taken to protect our lives with or without Covid.
For the reader’s information Seychelles Civil Society (SCS) is a registered NGO not funded nor assisted in any way by the government or any business or individual and we reflect the views of our members especially those who have no way of getting their views heard via the media. We operate a free and open membership meaning we do not have to cower to our members who pay membership fees.
Contributed by:
Barry LaineFCIM, FInst SMM, MCMI, MBSCH
Chairman
Seychelles Civil Society (SCS)
The Wishing Well
Anse Des genets, Mahe, Seychelles
seychellescivilsociety@gmail.com
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Seychelles NATION newspaper.