ST ANDRE, a local fishing boat owned by ex-Commissioner of Police and present security Advisor to the President, was arrested by the Coastguard recently harbouring illegal Chinese workers onboard.
The boat which had 8 Chinese crew and divers onboard was also found to have 1,000 to 1,500 sea cucumbers inside its hull with a minimum market value of R.150,000. Several blue plastic barrels, commonly used to store sea cucumbers, were also found onboard. The arrest, which made the 8 o’clock headline news on SBC, has given rise to yet more allegations of corruption at SFA and Immigration.
The whole donation was apparently masterminded by a mysterious Mr. Woo. All attempts by the Seychelles Weekly to contact Mr. Woo was in vain.
Le Nouveau Seychelles Weekly carried a front page article last year entitled “Corruption at SFA” after yet another Chinese fishing boat loaded with Chinese crew and blue plastic barrels was alleged to have come to Seychelles to engage in the sea cucumber trade. Mr. Randolph Payet, the Managing Director of SFA, hurried to SBC then to deny the content of the article on television. His version of events was that the boat was going to engage in long line fishing. This lie was later exposed to be a sham as the boat was dumped in the bay next to the PUC power plant at Providence never to engage in any fishing activity whatsoever in Seychelles waters. Most of the Chinese crew left the country thereafter. However, it now appears that at least some of the crew may have remained behind only to board St. Andre to work without a permit in the lucrative sea cucumber trade here.
The sea cucumber licence is now the most sought after licence in
SFA has long been accused of selective prosecution as far as contravention of the Fisheries Act is concerned. Until now only about two local fishing boats have been arrested and prosecuted, one for illegal fishing of sea cucumber and the other for failing to declare its catch amongst other charges. However, it is commonly known that a lot of people are fishing sea cucumber without licences and most, if not all, do not bother to declare their catch. Surprisingly SFA has not taken any action against these illegal operations even though the identities of the persons involved are well known to SFA.
As a result allegations of corruption have been levelled against certain individuals at SFA on more than one occasion. Amazingly the government has failed to investigate any of the allegations to date even though the President went out of his way in his annual State of the Nation address to single out the judiciary as an institution where corruption is rife. Corruption has been described as “simply the misuse of public office or public assets for private gains.
It is also the misuse of these assets in a way that creates an un-levelled playing field and that makes people feel injustice has been done. Perhaps this is why the average citizen in any country, in fact all of us, feel so badly about corruption. Corruption may be manifested in various forms, such as theft, fraud, bribery, extortion, request for kickbacks, nepotism and patronage. ”
It is also well known that there is a three year wait to get a sea cucumber licence as the quota system operated by SFA is said to be full. Many applicants have informed this paper that they have been waiting for more than 5 years and in some cases 10 years, to get a licence and they cannot understand why Mr. Kilindo was allowed to jump the queue ahead of everybody else. The whole exercise smacks of favouritism and preferential treatment for some whilst the mere mortals are made to wait indefinitely to get a licence.
It is not clear whether Mr. Kilindo has been charged for employing illegal workers on his boat or whether the Chinese culprits will be deported. Deportation is normally the sanction for such offences. However, this paper has learnt that a retrospective application for GOP has been made to the Immigration and it is expected that the illegal workers will be treated differently from everybody else simply because of their connection to Mr. Kilindo. Mr. Kilindo is also expected not to be charged with any offences because of his connection to the ruling party and close relationship with Mr. Randolph Payet, the Managing Director of SFA. This arbitrary practice has been the norm with the SPPF government from time immemorial and it would take a miracle to bring the culprits to justice. Like the saying goes, “we are all equal before the law but in
The issue of corruption within the SPPF government is quite acute as several Indian workers working in the Construction Industry here are known to be working illegally without GOP. There is strong allegation of a cartel operating within the Ministry of Internal Affairs involving powerful individuals within this Ministry who are getting their palms well greased by building contractors for turning a blind eye to this worrying trend
Until recently this Ministry was headed by the President himself, but after the Radovan Krejcir fake passport controversy the Ministry was unceremoniously handed over to the Vice President.
Even though the President has declared war on the illicit drug trade, he is yet to declare war on corruption as the latter is considered not to be a priority for the government. However, many share the view that as long as the endemic corruption in government is not tackled head on the drug pandemic will continue to ravage the country with no end in sight.