In 1995, Mancham was told to forget about his property by Regar
IN one of the most blatant instances of double standards that ever took place on Seychelles soil, Ex-President James Mancham , whose house at Glacis-Sur-Mer was expropriated while in enforced exile, was in 1995, urged by REGAR to drop his claim until supporters in the same boat also had their demands entertained.
This advice from Arpent Vert has been ignored when Ramkalawan started going to State House late last year to above all secretly negotiate juicy salary packages for himself and his cronies.
The REGAR article suggested that Mr. Mancham was using the “small committee" at State House to negotiate preferential treatment as regards the return of his acquired properties.
“Everyone will agree that this is a reasonable opinion, especially the hundreds of Seychellois who are still waiting to be given back all or part of their properties that were compulsorily acquired. His fellow countrymen are still out there in the cold waiting for some compensation"
The article goes on to propose that Mr. Mancham should wait for the claims of all his supporters to be satisfied, before he accepts the return of his property.
Over ten years later, the leader of those guys from Arpent Vert , who made the call, goes to State House to negotiate huge salary packages for themselves, never sparing a thought for their supporters, who are left to collect the crumbs if any.
While the guys from Arpent Vert have all bought new cars, making ample use of the tax concessions, most Seychellois have not benefited from a single rupee- despite the fact that the cost of living has doubled since the joined SPPF MNAS in approving the budget.
Ramkalwan, for instance, now enjoys the same salary as a government minister- which has gone up from R 19,000 pm to R 28,000 pm, a generous gratuity package and pension when he retires. His ten cronies, such as Norbert Loizeau, Sandy Arissol and Gervais Henri, all newcomers to the political scene who all voted yes for the salary package and also yes for the tax- laden budget, are also part of the “nouveau riche" pocketing about half what their leader takes home. This after speaking against the budget (2008) in their addresses before the National Assembly and vowed to vote against they soon changed their minds when it came to vote on the budget having realized that it contained a nice little package for them. If that is not double standard than we don't know what is??
In 1995, Mr. Mancham was portrayed by the guys from Arpent Vert as a selfish, greedy man who only cared for himself. REGAR even stooped as low as to publish the plan of Mr. Mancham's new house going up at Glacis, in a subsequent edition!
Leading his DP at the constitutional Assembly and later as Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Mr. Mancham made the return of properties during the one-party era his battle horse. His supporters included the Verlaque family of Praslin, whose land was maliciously acquired by the then Lands Minister Maxime Ferrari (father of Jean-Francois Ferrari of REGAR). Such land has until today never been recovered and instead allocated to the Lemuria Resort for Golf course development.
Some months later, after the Glacis-sur-mer property was handed back to Heirs Mancham, the house under construction went up in smoke!
Virtually everything was destroyed in the blaze, widely believed to be arson. Some criminals or a pack of them had decided to set fire to the house. Police and the Fire department recovered a face-mask on the scene.
It is not known whose face-mask it was. Until now, no light has been shed on the incident though there has been a lot of speculation as to the motives and who were behind it.