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Archive -Seychelles

Oman donates US $1m to disaster relief fund |29 November 2013

The National Disaster Relief Fund has received a new donation of US $1m (approximately R11,850,000) from the government of Oman.

Designated Minister Vincent Meriton presented the cheque to the fund’s chairperson Lekha Nair yesterday at its office in the State House annex building.

Present were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ principal secretary, Ambassador Maurice Loustau-Lalanne and principal secretary for community development and sports Denis Rose,
Director general for international relations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Michelle Murray and the fund’s board members were also present.

Mr Meriton said it is important to note that this donation will be used for work which has already been listed and not for new claims from members of the public.

He thanked the Omani government through the foreign affairs ministry for the donation which he said will be of great benefit to the fund.

Mrs Nair expressed words of thanks to the government of Oman for the donation made to the fund.

“This cheque has come at the right time when we are considering projects that we have shelved for lack of funds. We have about R15m worth of projects which we could not do and this donation will help greatly in undertaking them,” she noted.

“We are now trying to do projects of preventive nature, mitigating disaster such as drainage network in flood prone areas, helping families with retaining walls, among others.”

“To date the fund has collected R57m with this cheque included and we have spent about R27m and we have R15m already committed,” she added.

The fund has so far dealt with 292 cases of individuals or households totalling R7m, while R8m has been used for emergency works.

R3m has been used to help 79 farmers whose businesses have been affected by the January disasters.

Mrs Nair said the fund has also spent R3m with drainage projects and R5m for infrastructure and housing.

For La Digue, the fund had budgeted R1m for projects there, but so far only R200,000 has been spent.

R27.2m has been spent out of the R57,355,678 in the fund, and R15m has been committed for ongoing projects which Mrs Nair said will be carried out over the next few months.

Other donations received for the period of July to November are sums of R2,695 and another R9,017 from the money box from the airport; R1,000 from staff of Small Business Financing Agency; R1,000 from Barclays cyclone fund; R1,127 from money boxes in town and R25,000 from Verner Warehousing.

The African Union has given R1,200,000, staff of the President’s Office has contributed R2,805, Laxmanbhai and company has donated R200,000 and a sum of R30,000 came from Vision Care.

 

 

 

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