National Assembly approves motion for a cash light society |13 July 2023
The National Assembly has approved a motion requesting an end to financial transactions by cash in the public service and parastatals and for these entities to be implementing an online payment system by January 2025.
The motion was tabled during yesterday’s sitting by Hon. Gervais Henrie, the elected member for Mont Buxton for Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (LDS).
Twenty-two (22) members from his party voted for the motion, no one voted against, while the five opposition members of United Seychelles present, abstained.
When presenting his motion, Mr Henrie stated that it was the LDS administration’s dream to transform the Seychelles’ economy into a digital one.
He gave examples of entities already implementing online payment such as the Seychelles Revenue Commission, Registration office, Immigration office, the police, the Seychelles Licensing Authority and the Public Utilities Corporation.
State entities that have opted to go cashless include the Seychelles Public Transport Corporation (SPTC), which implemented the system at the beginning of July and the Seychelles Parks and Gardens Authority, which also adopted this new method of payment last year.
According to him, to date, 95 percent of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have Point of Sales system to facilitate online transactions instead of using cash.
According to Hon. Henrie few entities are yet to implement this system including the Ministry of Education and Local government.
“It should be the work and responsibility of those at the head of MDAs collecting revenues on behalf of government to introduce this measure as soon as possible,” he stated.
Hon. Henrie said an online system would guarantee that all the revenues destined for the government coffers would find their way there.
He told the National Assembly that presently because these are still being done by cash, the government stands to lose a lot of money.
He gave the example of the SPGA, which prior to launching its online payment in July last year, was losing half of its revenue, collected from visitors to Curieuse.
Citing SPGA’s chief executive, Hon. Henrie stated that in a profitable year their annual revenue would have been R15 million but they were losing half of it via cash transactions.
For its part, SPTC lost an estimated R3 million between January and August 2021, which represented 10 percent of its revenue.
“It is painful to hear that such sums do not go into government coffers to help my district with bus shelters, lights and bin sites that it needs, or more importantly salaries or social benefits for the people,” he stated.
Hon. Henrie highlighted various advantages of cashless transactions, such as reducing administrative risks and difficulties and costs associated to such transactions, improving efficiency and better management of public accounts, reducing illegal activities, and supporting government strategy for a better business environment.
He also recognised the effort made prior to LDS coming to power such as work done by the Department of Information Communication Technology, the Seychelles Central Bank as well as the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry. These included the online framework, the legal component such as amendments to several laws including the National Payment Systems Act, Financial Institutions Act and Cyber Crimes Act, as well as the integration of technology into the financial services.
Hon. Henrie pointed out that it was not the government’s intention to turn the country into a cashless society or ban cash but rather to turn it into a ‘cash light society’, similar to countries such as Sweden, Norway and Saudi Arabia which is aiming to have 70 percent of all financial transactions online by 2030.
Closer to home, he cited Seychelles Breweries which stopped using cash in its daily commercial operations at its headquarters in Le Rocher over six years ago.
All the LDS members who intervened on the motion spoke in favour citing the various benefits both individually and for the country.
The elected member for Takamaka, Hon. Terence Mondon, said it would be more secure, faster, easier to follow, meaning frauds and misappropriation would easily be spotted.
This was echoed by the elected member for Anse Boileau, Phillip Arissol, who stated that other than financial transparency, and increased efficiency, it would also reduce time wastage, meaning people will do their transactions in their own free time and space instead of physically going to those entities.
The elected member for Au Cap, Kelly Samynadin, talked about her personal experience during an exchange visit to Sweden in 2018 where she witnessed online payments in most services she accessed including transportation.
The opposition members who intervened also highlighted the benefits of a cashless system stating the motion had its merits but that a lot of preparations needed to be done prior to it being introduced nationwide.
United Seychelles’ proportionate member, Hon. Wallace Cosgrow, said “the migration to an online economy was inevitable”. He stated this has been going on for a while to ensure Seychelles was not left behind.
“Yes it must be done but does it take priority over every day things that are frustrating the population at the moment,” he argued, stating there was a gap between the country’s priority and what the government was doing for the citizens.
Some even argued that the 18 months’ time frame was too ambitious.
Another proportionate member, Hon. Wilbert Herminie, said this would not be achievable and questioned “why the speed for this”, considering the legal structure that needs to be put in place.
“Yes it is a good idea, but are all the mechanisms in place?” he argued.
For his part, Hon. Johan Loze stated, “If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right”.
The elected member for Port Glaud, Hon. Egbert Aglae highlighted the hiccups already noticed with the SPTC as well as those of the Travizory.
“Have we calculated how much will it cost the country to go online fully?” he queried.
In his clarification, Hon. Henrie reiterated that what was being proposed was a cash light society instead of a totally cashless one and these should only be implemented by state entities instead of the entire private sector.
Patsy Canaya