Exclusive interview with Jitesh Shah, chief executive of the Seychelles Infrastructure Agency ‘The agency will harmonise standards used, processes and workflow’ |21 April 2022
CEO Shah during the interview (Photo: Myra Labiche)
Jitesh Shah is the chief executive of the newly createdSeychelles Infrastructure Agency and in this exclusive interview with Seychelles NATION he tells us about himself and roles of the agency.
Seychelles NATION: Mr Shah, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your educational background.
Jitesh Shah: I’ll start with my educational background. I attended Independent School from kindergarten all the way through to secondary five (5). At the time Independent School did not have A-Levels, so I joined the School of Advanced Level Studies (Sals) at Anse Royale. Upon completion of my A-Levels I travelled to the United Kingdom to study for a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Nottingham. At the end of the three years of study I came back and started working with the ministry responsible for land and housing. I had the opportunity to go to Australia to do my Master’s degree in Engineering Project Management at the University of Melbourne.
Aside from that I am a normal young person with general hobbies. I am 30 years old, born in 1991. I am an avid reader and enjoy hanging out with friends. Unfortunately the last few years have been tough on the social side, I did have a very active social life before that. I also don’t have much time to read though I do try to crack open a couple of books when I am on leave. I enjoy sports as well but again due to time constraints I don’t get to play much as well. I also enjoy watching movies and spending time with my wife.
Seychelles NATION: Tell us about the role of this new agency which you are heading.
Jitesh Shah: The role of the agency is effectively government’s consultancy for construction projects to assist on a technical level in terms of helping to translate the requirements of the different government ministries and departments to a physical product that they can use to achieve their goals. We help them from conception of a project by taking those requirements and building a concept, budgeting that concept so that they can move forward and seek funding. We expand the concept design to a detailed design, architectural drawings, engineering drawings which we do in-house. We also have quantity surveyors to help prepare the bills of quantity that give us a very detailed estimate as well as a document that we can tender with. We assist with the tender process, evaluation and selection of contractors to undertake the works. We also supervise the construction and then hand over to the different line ministries and help them oversee the maintenance of the physical infrastructure.
Seychelles NATION: How will this agency involve the units/people already assigned to such responsibilities in other ministries?
Jitesh Shah: There’s always been the infrastructure department, so the whole point of the agency was to not have these small groups of people in different government departments. Everybody has been brought under a single structure, for instance the project staff of local government, ministry of education, ministry of health, and agricultural agency. All these staff have now been brought together under a single work structure and they are all employed by the Seychelles Infrastructure Agency to harmonise a bit the standards we use, the processes, our workflow, and it also helps with transfer of knowledge and sharing of information. We don’t want to work in silos. We have experiences of projects that have not been up to standards simply because nobody knew who was supposed to be taking care of what. So as an agency, we do all of that. All government projects will be done through us, so we have a bigger picture of all the developments that are happening in the country. We work in close partnership with the inter-ministerial committee and one of its key roles is to oversee and prioritise projects on a national level. To make sure they are in line with the strategic plan of the country. Investment is not made in areas which do not add value. The agency has 138 employees and is currently recruiting.
Seychelles NATION: Recently we have seen some major issues with flooding caused by rivers and drainage which had not being cleaned. Has your agency been involved in the investigations?
Jitesh Shah: Yes we have been involved in the coordinated efforts. There are different stakeholders ‒ government agencies, private companies ‒ involved when it comes to these issues and this does not just cover the management of these infrastructure but the day-to-day use. When I say that, I mean we often see in drains and large channels utilities, services and other accessories. So there are a lot of core stakeholders which have a big role to play. We have been gathering information and coming up with solutions that are agreed on by all stakeholders. Moving forward, we need to look for innovative ways of doing things. If something isn’t working, we cannot keep doing it the same way we have been doing all these years. So we are trying to find a more coordinated approach, be more open-minded and look for out-of-the-box approach to solving some of the problems we’ve got today.
Seychelles NATION: Many government facilities have major structural problems, what is your plan to refurbish them?
Jitesh Shah: One of the biggest challenges we face as an agency is the responsibility of maintenance of public infrastructure, primarily buildings as other public infrastructures are maintained by other ministries, departments and agencies. There has not been a consistent coordinated programme for maintenance of buildings over the years, it’s very much been ad hoc, as and when we indentified problems, we dealt with them. What we would call preventive maintenance is not being done and we are setting up a unit in-house to do just that, this is something that is relatively new to government.
Our first step is to create a database of all the assets. Ministries have the responsibility to keep their own information and part of the information is incomplete. So it is a question of gathering all the information. With what we have, we will build a database and from there conduct visits and surveys of these buildings to gather more information on their engineering aesthetic etc. This is because a lot of the problems we see today aren’t necessarily engineering problems. We’ve seen over the last three or four years that a lot of government buildings have this issue of mould or fungus. People have to realise that it is how these buildings have been designed and how society has changed since then and the way we operate within these spaces which is very different to what it used to be. We’ve got a lot of buildings in Seychelles which were designed to be naturally ventilated, with time and technology we started closing windows, we started putting air conditions, and there is no circulation of air. A lot comes down to the way we are using these facilities rather than it being a problem with the facilities themselves. It means that in some cases we would have to make modifications to the building, it will also be a question of educating people on how to better manage the resources. It is a big task and there is no simple solution especially since we are starting almost from scratch. It is going to take some time before we can get ourselves into a position where we can be having that dialogue with government to tell them this is the list of assets and these are the buildings that require major maintenance and once that is done, this is the regular periodic maintenance that needs to be done. We also have to work on the budget.
Our relationship with key stakeholders is going to be very important, like the disaster risk management division (DRMD) for risk assessment. It is important that we have good communication with them when we are developing projects to ensure that we get the right information.
In the past, the coordination has been less than desired and as a result sometimes we’ve ended up with things that could have been avoided. So having those discussions, with the planning authority present, will help a lot. Everything we do will be subject to the planning authority’s approval. We do not work outside of this system. The advantage I’d say we will have as a government entity is we can have a closer working relationship with the planning authority in terms of better communication, better collaboration and a consultative process with all the different agencies ‒ DRMD, environment department, etc… This will help avoid wastage of resources as we would know what design and concept are best for a project.
Seychelles NATION: How does the government plan to maximise the structures already in place?
Jitesh Shah: I can only answer part of this question. When it comes to management of land this will not fall under our responsibility.
We will be more involved in the planning stage. For instance, if we were to start development on Ile Aurore right now, we would be interacting with different partners. Also, we would have to review the Ile Aurore development master plan together with the planning authority. But once that master plan is done and approved, the construction work completed, the onus will be on the respective organisations to manage the buildings.
Seychelles NATION: What about the unused coloured kiosks around the ex- playground area. Has any survey been done to know how many government properties we have and in what state they are?
Jitesh Shah: There is an ongoing exercise on state-owned land by the lands department and they have made good progress over the past few months. Once that is done, I am sure the results will be shared with the public. As for the little houses around the ex-playground, they fall under the management of the Enterprise Seychelles Agency (Esa). We are also assisting right now in the development of a master plan for the ex-playground and this is part of the revised waterfront concept. A lot of these structures we see in this area are not necessarily long term structures. So there needs to be a review of how everything is managed in that area, but again we can only help with the technical side.
Interview conducted by Marla Simeon
