National Assembly endorses recommendation to establish TRNUC successor body |12 August 2023

Following the approval of each of the two parties’ reports in the National Assembly this week, it is hoped that the executive will endorse recommendations to establish a successor body to complete the former commission’s work, and act upon the 47 recommendations proposed by former Commissioners.

The two parties in the Assembly, Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (LDS) and United Seychelles (US) debated on the report and recommendations last week, and during Wednesday’s sitting approved their own reports, in which each party proposes how to implement the commission’s recommendations.

The LDS report is titled ‘The Report on the National Assembly deliberations on the process and recommendations of the TRNUC Commission’, while the United Seychelles (US) report is titled ‘Position of the United Seychelles opposition on the proposed National Assembly report arising from the debate on the TRNUC report and recommendations’.

For the present moment, the National Assembly is yet to make the reports available to the public, but will do so once they are officially presented to the executive for consideration, Speaker Roger Mancienne told Seychelles NATION.

“I believe that the executive is now charged with looking at how the recommendations of the reports can be implemented. There is a suggestion in the report, and endorsed by the National Assembly, that there should be a successor body to look at the recommendations and see how to put them in practice. What we want is that the successor body, or any other entity that picks up the implementation, will consider the views that have been expressed by the National Assembly,” Mr Mancienne said.

Despite expressing disappointment over the debates last week, Mr Mancienne has expressed that he is satisfied with the contents of the reports because they represent the views that were expressed by the two sides.

“My disappointment, as I expressed last week, was that I felt that both sides were not concentrating enough on how to implement the recommendations, that is, not making proposals and suggestions on the best way of implementing the recommendations. But they did choose certain recommendations to endorse, and they did reflect their position on how they could be implemented, but I believe there was a lack of details.”

“But, in the circumstance that there was no consensus, we accepted the divergent views of the two sides,” Mr Mancienne stated.

Regarding the US report which was leaked and circulated on social media, Mr Mancienne added that he is not of the view that this will be an issue.

Considering that the TRNUC was birthed in the National Assembly, it is important that they have also had the opportunity to conclude the process, he added.

“I would like to repeat that I believe it was very important that the National Assembly debated the report, consider the recommendations, and also put its conclusions in the reports that are being submitted, so that the Assembly’s voice have been heard and is recorded in the process. As I said in the Assembly, what I value most are the times that the members addressed the recommendations specifically to propose ways of implementing them. That is what I believe was of most value in the debate that we had,” Mr Mancienne concluded.

Laura Pillay