SEYCHELLES PLANNING AUTHORITY- FAILING TO MEET THE PUBLIC’S EXPECTATION

Patrick Lablache, Chairman of Seychelles Planning Authority.

Scathing criticisms of the Seychelles Planning Authority surfaced this week as investors and the public alike accused the Authority of long and undue delays in considering their applications for planning permission which now stretches into months instead of the normal weeks.

The  Seychelles Planning Authority is currently chaired by Mr. Patrick Lablache, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Land Use and Habitat and Mr. Terry Biscornet, Director General, in the same Ministry, is the Secretary. There are also rumours that President Michel may be seriously considering a reshuffle in that Ministry and that Mr. Lablache will be moved to another post within Government although his replacement, as yet, remains a mystery.

Initially, it was Seychelles Investment Bureau which was at   the receiving end of all the criticisms as investors complained that the “one stop shop” which was the personal initiative of President James Michel was not delivering on its promises to make decisions within 30 days of receipt of projects. As the dust settled on the issue the Seychelles Investment Bureau has made it known that they are in fact having problems from the  Seychelles Planning Authority which is failing to make timely decisions on applications for planning permission.

Surprisingly, the Seychelles Planning Authority only meet once a week on a Friday afternoon and with the unprecedented boom in the construction industry, it is not unusual to expect long delays in making decisions. The problem can easily be solved by President Michel simply requesting the Seychelles Planning Authority to meet at least three times a week instead in order to clear the bottleneck and deal with the backlogs. For its part the Seychelles Planning Authority has accused the other Government agencies such as the Health and Environment Ministries of not working with speed and efficiency causing them, in turn, to fail to make quick decisions.

However, passing the buck will not solve the persistent and niggling problems which are causing dismay, annoyance and inconvenience to investors and the public alike. What has become apparent is that an urgent mechanism need to be invoked which would enable all the Ministries and government agencies involve to work in sync and compliment each other instead of criticising and pointing fingers at each other.

Perhaps the way forward is for the government to adopt the following recommendations:

• Remove the heavy and complicated administrative process that bogs down initiatives to make quick decision making less of a hindrance.

• Current bureaucratic procedures tend to slow down the development of new business and procedures such as tax systems and authorisation will benefit tremendously from the new mindset, doing away with prior approval in many cases.

•  Streamlining procedures will facilitate new investments allowing businesses to start in as little as three days.

• Do away with prior health, safety, fire and police clearance by compelling new businesses to follow well-defined guidelines and self-adherence which can be verified.

The idea is to allow businesses to implement self-policing practices with monitoring by government agencies only after the businesses have set up and  licences obtained.

• Licences should only be paid after the start of operations not before as is currently the practice.

• The International Trade Zone and the non-International Trade Zone sectors should merge and receive the same equal treatment.All incentive certificate schemes should be abolished.

• Registration of Companies and other business entities should also be processed by the Seychelles Investment Bureau as a one stop shop for businesses and should be completed within three days of submission.

 • The Seychelles Investment Bureau should act as facilitator and promotor instead of issuing investment approvals.

This will be a step in the right direction and will encourage investors to look at Seychelles with renewed interest-an essential condition for growth.The Seychelles Planning Authority, the Seychelles Investment Bureau, Ministries and government agencies must work like a well oiled machine and speed up their decision making process as Seychelles faces stiff competition from other neighbouring countries in its quest to attract Direct Foreign Investment. It does not make any sense at all for the government to spend millions of dollars marketing Seychelles as a country which is attractive and friendly to investors only to disappoint when the investors  submit their projects for government approval.

We cannot afford to give away what we have worked hard to accomplish. It takes only one authority, agency, or person to give a bad image to the country and word of mouth will spread like wild fire to the detriment of the country as a whole. ANSANM POU LANMOUR SESEL!

March 2, 2007
Copyright 2007: Seychelles Weekly, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles