Sale of tanker Seychelles Pride   PEMC expects to conclude investigation this week |08 February 2022

Investigation by the Public Enterprise Monitoring Commission into the sale of the Seychelles Pride, one of Seychelles Petroleum Company’s tankers, is expected to be concluded this week, Seychelles NATION has learned.

The report of the investigation by the Public Enterprise Monitoring Commission (PEMC) will then be submitted to the government as shareholder.

It was Finance, Economic Planning and Trade Minister Naadir Hassan who ordered on January 18, 2022 an investigation into the procedure of the disposal and sale of the Seychelles Pride.

Since Seypec falls under the responsibility of the Minister for Finance, Economic Planning and Trade, Minister Hassan mandated the PEMC to conduct the investigation, in accordance with Section 42(a) of the Public Enterprise Monitoring Commission Act, 2013, which states: ‘The Responsible Minister may at any time, order an investigation into the affairs of a Public Enterprise as the Responsible Minister deems necessary’.

The sale of Seychelles Pride owned by the Seychelles Petroleum Company Limited (Seypec) was concluded on January 12, 2022.

According to the minister, the government as the main shareholder of the state-owned enterprise Seypec was not informed of the disposal and subsequent sale of the tanker.

Pending the conclusion of the investigation, the chief executive of Seypec, Conrad Benoiton, is on suspension and in the interim, on the recommendation of the board, Sarah Romain, the current general manager commercial at Seypec, was appointed interim CEO.

The following day, January 19, 2022, the Seypec board of directors  acknowledged that the government was not formally informed by the company of the sale of the Seychelles Pride, and it also confirmed that the sale of the tanker was as per the replacement strategy of Seypec and all the proceeds associated with that sale have been received.

Gerard Govinden