‘Selwyn Knowles is a person with a high level of integrity’ |12 August 2013

“Seychelles Nation journalist acted in good faith, but due to the complexity of the procedure in place for imposing and waiving fines on importers who have violated import regulations, she failed to relay the fact that Selwyn Knowles has no power to waive such fines unilaterally.”

The Ministry of Finance, Trade and Investment made this remark in a communiqué sent to this newspaper on Friday in response to an article published in this newspaper recently regarding a visit by Minister Pierre Laporte to the Customs department.

The communiqué reads:

“The Ministry of Finance, Trade and Investment has over the last two weeks started a series of visits by Minister Pierre Laporte and other senior officials from the ministry to all organisations falling under the portfolio of the ministry, with the aim of taking stock of the progress made and challenges still outstanding since the last visit about 15 months ago.

“In one of the visits at the Customs – sea port – a staff queried about the procedure in place for imposing and waiving fines on importers who have violated import regulations.

“The ministry believes that the discussion of this matter was not properly captured and reported by the Seychelles Nation newspaper on Friday July 26. We appreciate that the reporter had acted in good faith, however due to the complexity of the subject matter the reporter failed to relay the fact that Mr Selwyn Knowles has no power to waive such fines unilaterally but that each case where an appeal against the fine is made criteria such as the compliance history of the importer, the nature of the fine, a first time offence are carefully looked into before recommendations are made to the Commissioner of the Seychelles Revenue Commission.

“Mr Knowles, who is the assistant commissioner of customs, is a person with a high level of integrity and with many years experience in customs and without any doubt is always known to act with the highest standards of professionalism in the best interest of Seychelles. Hence the Ministry of Finance, Trade and Investment wants to clarify its position on the article and provide its support to Mr Knowles, while acknowledging the dedication and devotion of the staff in such a demanding environment.”