Former minister Noellie Alexander passes away |04 May 2018

Former minister and ambassador Noellie Alexander passed away in hospital early yesterday morning following a short illness. She was 71 years old.

Through a message of sympathy, President Danny Faure has expressed his deepest condolences to the family of the former minister and ambassador.

The president said Miss Alexander was his neighbour and close friend for many years.

“We joined the Cabinet of Ministers together in 1998.  She was a determined and hardworking civil servant, always frank and outspoken. She had made an enormous contribution to the development of Seychelles, and will be greatly missed,” said President Faure in a communiqué issued by State House yesterday.

Minister Alexander had started her career as a sales representative of British Airways in 1971 when the British airline BOAC opened its offices in Victoria. She was among the first Seychellois to work with the airline.

After that, she joined the University of Manchester to read for a Master’s degree in public administration. She later joined the public service where she developed a special interest in human resource development and was appointed director of the Seychelles Institute of Management (SIM) in 1979.

In 1989 she became the director general for manpower development and in 1993 she was appointed principal secretary for health.

Miss Alexander served as Minister of Administration, and later as Minister of Administration and Manpower Development, between 1998 and 2005.

She served briefly as chief executive of the newly restructured Seychelles Institute of Management from 2005 until her appointment as ambassador in 2006.  She retired from full-time public service in November 2009 after serving as Seychelles' high commissioner to South Africa.

In 2016, Miss Alexander founded the Lalyans Seselwa political party along with fellow former minister Patrick Pillay, who was voted the speaker of the sixth National Assembly before resigning from the post in January this year.

Miss Alexander was born in Mombasa, Kenya to a Seychellois mother and a Mauritian father. She came to Seychelles in 1969.

She leaves behind, a son - Jean-Philippe Alexander.