More than 25 years after the SPPF Government compulsorily acquired most of their 25 acres of land at Anse Kerlan , Praslin , the Verlaques family is still waiting for “ fair and adequate compensation”.
The latest development was a court judgement four years ago, upheld by the Court of Appeal then, allowing Government to renege on a pledge to return half of the land. This coincided with the Government selling that portion of the property to the developers of Lemuria Hotel, to build a golf course. The Verlaques family remained defiant and staged regular sit-in protests on the land in a bid to disrupt construction work. It culminated in the arrest and detention of the elderly Idea Verlaques, mother of nine children.
When the land was compulsorily acquired just after the coup d’etat in 1977, it made headlines in the then independent publication – Weekend Life. At that time the excuse given by the government for seizing private property was that this was in the “national interest”. Part of the Verlaques’ property was given over to a government housing project but the rest remained unused. Very little compensation was offered and whatever was given came in dribs and drabs over the 15 years of the One-party State.
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In the meantime, one of the Verlaques’ sons, Georges, lost his job at the Seychelles Licensing Authority which was attributed to retaliation for expressing their claim in public. The sacking of course, was not so blatant. He was simply transferred to work on Mahe, although his home is on Praslin and that he was employed in the first place for the job on Praslin precisely because he was living there. Working on Mahe would also mean abandoning his 80 year-old heartbroken mother.
To date, the pledge of fair compensation by the government is still not yet fulfilled. Meanwhile erosion is taking its toll on the few acre that’s left each time the monsoon rain arrives.