Editorial

CHANGE IS GOOD, MR. PRESIDENT

President James Michel, we at Le Nouveau Seychelles Weekly have made it our life long mission to inform you of all the things that are wrong in our country and which need to change.  You are the only man in our country who can change things; who has absolute power to change things for the better.  Change is good.  Your people crave for change.  If you have, by any chance, been listening we told you the following:-

1. Our roads are in a very poor state and need repairing immediately.  Fix it.

2. Traffic jams are costing our country millions of rupees every month, as productive people get stuck in traffic jams, doing absolutely nothing, when they could be producing wealth for the country.  When the total amount of time wasted in traffic jams every day is added you have considerable time wasted over a yearly period.  Deal with this now.

3. Searches at the airport are degrading, humiliating and embarassing.  Stop it.  Find an alternative.

4. The forex problems have been with us for years, and so are the economic woes, especially food shortages which are making more people suffer hardship.  Focus on this problem.  Solve it once and for all and everything else will automatically fall into place.

5. Be a genuine and bona fide 'President of all the Seychellois’.  Stop this negative habit of seeing people in terms of their politics.  “I ek nou, I pa ek nou” myopic politics need to stop immediately.

6. Deal with our water shortage.  August will soon be here.  P.U.C. bowsers will be on the roads again just like they have been last year and the year before and will be next year.  You know the problem is leakage of water pipes which lose millions of gallons of precious fresh treated water every year.  Solve it.

7. Tell SFA to remove the quota system so that all our local fisherman can have the chance to benefit from the lucrative sea cucumber business and feed their families.

8. Close down IDC and leave our outer islands to private investors and entrepreneurs to produce food, create employment and wealth for the country.  Give priority to Seychellois.

9. Speed up the Land Reform Programme where every Seychellois who does not own a plot of land can benefit from one in the land bank.  People have been waiting for years to get a plot of land.

10. Reform our health service in order to provide the highest standard of health care, and not just basic care.

11. Give all our children the equal chance to get a Government Scholarship “to be what they want to be”.  The present system is discriminatory and not all our children are getting the chance to get a scholarship.

12. Speed up your housing program so that everybody who needs a house will get one.

13. Reform the means testing system as a lot of recipients who deserve to get assistance are not getting it and many who do not deserve it are.

14. Last but not least, talk to your political opponents and find ways and means where you can collaborate to improve our country and the welfare of our people.  Revenge is not the way forward.

Mr. President when you implement the above we will be a much happier as a nation.

Next Week

1. Reform the judiciary

2. Remove price control

3. Reform and simplify the tax system opt for a flat rate of taxation, social security and pension scheme (5% flat rate)

4. Reform the police

5. Close down the army and save Rs. 65,000 000 to build more houses.

6. Abolish Trades Tax completely on all imported goods and apply GST as a VAT.

February 9, 2007
Copyright 2007: Seychelles Weekly, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles