President Danny Faure visits departments of habitat and infrastructure |28 July 2017
800 plots of land to be allocated in four years
• Housing units construction on track
Eight hundred (800) plots of land are expected to be allocated by 2020 and the target to build 24 housing units in 24 districts in the next 24 months is also on track.
President Danny Faure got details about these projects yesterday morning when he visited the departments of habitat and infrastructure.
Accompanied by Habitat, Infrastructure and Land Transport Minister Charles Bastienne, infrastructure principal secretary Yves Choppy, habitat principal secretary Denis Barbé, chief secretary and head of public service Jessie Esparon, other senior officials from State House and from the ministry, President Faure started his visit at the housing section located on the ground floor of Independence House.
Director for housing Chantal Bistoquet briefed the president about the number of people who have received help from the section, the housing situation in the country, the housing product categorisation ‒ social housing for low income earners, self-financing for people with income of R15,000 and above, and condominium for people with income of R25,000 and more.
Among the challenges, Mrs Bistoquet said they include clients’ high expectation, increase in the number of broken homes, inflated price of private rental, design suitable for the disabled and increase in the number of young families.
She noted that in order to have transparency in the allocation of houses and improve service delivery, a point system has been derived to enable the ministry to prioritise every applicant on the basis of his/her scores at both national and district levels.
At the Planning Authority, chief executive Joseph François and his deputy Fanette Albert talked about the revised land use plan giving for example that of Anse Royale, permission to build above the 50m contour line on Praslin and La Digue, the significant improvement in the timeframe from four to two weeks to approve planning applications, and the removal of structures on La Digue and at Val Mer where people could not get access to the beach.
Director for lands acquisition and sales Bernadette Boniface explained that her section expects to deliver 215 plots of land in 2017 and this is above the new target of 200 and this will be possible thanks to the increase in budget allocation from R33 million last year to R55 million this year.
She added that the section will be revising the price of land as the cost of infrastructure continues to rise and a second survey will be done later during the year to come up with the exact number of people looking for a plot of land.
As for property management and policy planning director Sabrina Zoé, she informed the president that by 2020, 8,000 plots would have been allocated, meaning almost half of the number of applications would have been covered.
Geographical Information System (GIS) director Francis Coeur de Lion said his section will in September this year go to all schools to launch the updated maps of Seychelles, can do household numbering, and he got one of his staff to display the WebGIS on a smartphone for the location of beacons for example.
Surveys director Julien Alexis said they are working to resolve overlaps and gaps on the cadastral map, to have better survey control which has started on Praslin and La Digue, to have new topographic maps for Seychelles, and to deliver 200+ residential plots by the end of 2017 and achieve 800 plots by the end of 2020. To achieve this goal, staff of the section have been working overtime.
As for infrastructure principal secretary Choppy, he gave the president an update on the number of housing units that will be constructed in the 24 districts in the coming months and their exact locations.
PS Choppy also informed President Faure that the ministry has seen a reduction in construction price since the start of this year, adding that this is good news for clients and the ministry as well as it will be able to build more housing units.
Speaking to the press, Minister Bastienne said it’s been a while since the president had wanted to visit the Ministry of Habitat, Infrastructure and Land Transport to see for himself what is happening.
“It is true that through various reports, including quarterly reports and discussions I have had with the president, he has been made aware of what is happening in the ministry. Today, he has been able to see first-hand and interact with the staff and technicians as well as see if there are any difficulties and problems they are encountering,” said Minister Bastienne.
He added that “the president has also been able to see where we are as far as service delivery, with the delivery of projects that he has pledged to the population, and different aspects of the ministry that have to be addressed.”
Minister Bastienne is confident his ministry will shake off the negative tag and manage its clients according to expectations.
“It is not a secret. This ministry has been criticised for so long and right now we are going through a period of transformation in order for us to deliver as per the expectations of the public based on resources available. We will now take a stance by managing the clients instead of clients managing us like it has been the case for a long while,” said the minister.