THE CONTROVERIAL SALARIES OF CAPTAIN SAVY
News that the newly arrived Qatar Airways no longer accepts payment in our national currency, and that only Air Seychelles will now take you to a few destinations outside Seychelles for your rupees, is a body blow to the airline industry in Seychelles.
But unknown to the population of Seychelles, until this newspaper revealed it, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Air Seychelles – Captain David Savy, was being paid in Euros since as far back as 2004. By our reckoning, if Captain David Savy were to convert only 50% of his € 63,000 a year salary on the parallel market, that portion of his salary alone would amount to his full salary when it was denominated in rupees at the airline’s own exchange rate.
It is not known how many members of staff working for our national flag carrier gets paid in foreign currency. Neither is it known what the average salary of the average airline’s over 600 employees is. But cabin crews on average, who are all Seychellois, earn under the national average wage for a very prestigious job as far as employment in Seychelles goes, but which comes with long arduous hours mostly away from home. The requirement and responsibility of a cabin attendant is not the same as that of a fish cleaner or even a supervisor at IOT, the tuna packing company, even though the later earn virtually the equivalent wage packet.
Few employees of the airline (and the people of Seychelles for that matter), it appears, knew of the exact salary of their CEO, Captain David Savy – let alone the fact that he earns that in Euro and not rupees anymore. When our story appeared about Air Seychelles’ secretive Annual Report and Financial Statement for the year ending 31st March 2005 the airline’s staff was generally led to believe that the management would be writing to this newspaper to deny our claim of the extent of Captain Savy’s salary, according to rumours circulating among the cabin crews. This newspaper has received no such complaint or denial up to now.
The salary as CEO of Air Seychelles is not the only one that Captain Savy earns it appears. He is also a senior member of the Seychelles People’s Defence Forces (SPDF) with the title of Lieutenant Colonel for which he receives a full salary. His salary for this post is also a State Secret. Our information indicates that it is in the region of SR 15, 000 a month or R180, 000 a year plus gratuities every five years. This anomalous arrangement stemmed from the previous one-party state directive that said, that anyone who wanted to be an airline pilot must join, or if he or she is employed as one must belong, to the Seychelles People’s Liberation Army’s (SPLA) Air Wing.
The Air Wing was created in the early eighties when India donated two Allouette helicopters to the SPLA. The SPLA also took over a small propeller plane donated by Britain as a maritime surveillance aircraft to police our vast EEZ under the Law of the Sea Treaty. All these aircraft crashed killing all their crews – all of them very young men - and were never replaced. Even though bereft of any planes, the Air Wing and the original rules remained a strange feature of the SPLA and its successor the SPDF until quite recently.
In the Air Seychelles Annual Report for 2004-2005, the airline made the following claims about Captain Savy’s military “career”: On the military side, Captain Savy has served (sic) in several posts in the Seychelles People’s Defence Forces (SPDF). This varied from Commanding Officer of the Seychelles Air Wing, Commanding Officer of Airport Security Unit, Deputy Chief of Staff of SPDF, member of the Defence Forces Council, and Member of the Board of Governors of the Seychelles of the Seychelles Defence Academy.
That is not the end of Captain Savy myriad of posts and responsibilities. The Annual Report also claims that he is a director of various private sector entities. It is not known if he is remunerated in cash or in kind for his services to these companies, especially the one in Mauritius. These include, according to the report, H. Savy & Company Ltd and Terra Properties Ltd here in Seychelles as well New Mauritius Hotels Ltd, in Mauritius, which has been given the right to develop a five star hotel project on Ste Anne Island to the exclusion of everyone one else. Captain Savy’s younger brother Francis has in turn been given virtual ownership on the rest of the island by the SPPF government for SR1.
