Three years after the South African company took over the new man-made island off Roche Caiman, renaming it “ Eden Island” and planning some 450 luxury apartments and houses there, the project is way behind schedule.
Less than a dozen buildings have been completed so far and this newspaper has learnt that work is delayed because of financial reasons. Even South African concerns are experiencing problems with payments.
This, combined with inadequate planning and harmonization of various activities, has also served to frustrate various stakeholders.
An official announcement of the first sale came last year, or 12 months after it was claimed that 25% of the apartments and houses had been reserved.
Some buyers have turned up, all coveting the sites facing St Anne and Cerf islands. Others, charmed by the adverts featuring the islands of the marine park, have been put off on seeing the coral fill and rock armoring, instead of the sandy beaches.
Taking the press around two years ago, just after the causeway linking it to Mahe was built, Chief executive Craig Heeger boasted that the luxury houses and apartments will each have mooring for the yachts or boats. It was also planned to have a shopping complex on Eden Island, to include a pharmacy, camera shop, beauty shop and everything nice, provided you pay for it in foreign currency.
This measure, our hosts explained, was necessary because of the prevailing economic problems in the country. Heeger was particularly proud of the fact that after the Seychelles government turned down his development plans at the turn of the century, he was given the nod a few years later, when according to him the economy had begun to slide.
The Eden Island project is heavily backed by Barclays South Africa. Heeger hopes the South African links will be strong enough to compel Air Seychelles CEO David Savy to switch the air links from Jo’burg to Cape Town. From the magnificent beachscape of the Cape Province, it might be a great change to live on a man-made island, in an aircraft flight path, opposite a housing estate and protected from the ocean by rock armour.
From Eden Island, there is a good view of an impressive house on the Roche Caiman waterfront owned by the district MNA, the lucky Ms Geovanna Charles, alongside a rather modest one for the DA, Mr. Omath. These two lucky SPPF die-hards could one day be tempted to part with the seemingly priceless assets for some bagfuls of South African rands.
As up-market residential facilities such as Eden Island, Raffles Resort Banyan Tree, Anonyme Island and a host of luxury homes mushrooming for the rental market, questions arise as to how these will be classified within a grading exercise being implemented by the Seychelles Tourist Board. The matter was raised at a packed meeting of tourism representatives held recently at the ICCS.
At the meeting local tourism stakeholders argued that they will face unfair competition from such places which serve as dwellings for part of the year and operate as hotels thereafter.
STB head Maurice Lousteau-Lalanne later, a few days after the meeting, attacked the tourism operators on SBC-Television, saying much of what they had said was untrue. He blamed foreigners who already have homes in Seychelles of accommodating friends and depriving licensed establishments of earnings. He conveniently overlooked that such foreigners were in fact ‘bona fide Seychellois‘, having purchased their citizenships and all the privileges that go with it. Maurice Lousteau-Lalanne conveniently forgot all about the illegal hotel operation on Farquar.