Esa launches food van surveys in districts |31 March 2022
CEO Appoo (right) and DG Clarisse during the interview with the press yesterday (Photo: Louis Toussaint)
Starting today, Thursday March 31, all districts will be involved in a survey to evaluate the operation of food vans in the country.
Angelique Appoo, chief executive (CEO) of the Enterprise Seychelles Agency (Esa) and the director general for the community development division, Denise Clarisse from the Ministry of Local Government and Community Affairs, answered journalists’ questions during a press conference yesterday at the Camion Hall to announce the launch of the food van survey in the districts including Victoria.
The survey will commence today Thursday March 31 and will be conducted in all districts till Thursday April 28, 2022. This will be in collaboration with representatives from district administrations, Esa, Seychelles Planning Authority, lands department, Seychelles Licensing Authority (SLA), Public Health Authority (PHA), department of environment, Road Transport Commission and Seychelles Land Transport Agency (SLTA).
There will be a full evaluation of food vans in operation, vans on the list of SLA that have their licenses as well as those operating without permission. The aim of the exercise is to evaluate whether food vans are being operated up to sanitary standards, complying with their license conditions, whether they possess a lease agreement for the location where they are operating and whether the lease is being paid.
The survey has been categorised into six regions and will run from 9am to 4pm though in some cases they will be carried out from 9am to noon.
Additionally the taskforce that is going to conduct the survey will also aim to identify new locations to situate potential businesses.
The demand for food vans, kiosks and pop up activities has increased over the years and at the end of the exercise Esa will give a feedback on what have been identified.
So far there are 70 plus food van applications and approvals will be varied based on demand, location and diversity.
Esa chief executive Angelique Appoo said there are already a lot of food vans and all the stakeholders will discuss on whether there is a need for more or whether they will need to advise people to venture into other types of businesses.
The van operators have been alerted about the survey and know that officers will show up to inspect at any given time.
CEO Appoo said there is also an ongoing discussion regarding food vans that are supposed to be mobile but have stationed themselves and they will need to see what the regulations stipulate and it will need to be evaluated.
Currently there are 72 food vans on record with SLA. The areas with the most food vans are Victoria, followed by Persévérance, Beau Vallon and Roche Caïman.
Marla Simeon
