SRC donates to homes for the elderly |30 January 2021
The handover of the donation
In this trying time, the staff of the Seychelles Revenue Commission (SRC) have come together to collect funds so as to buy some necessary products that are being used at the homes for the elderly.
The handover of the items took place in a brief ceremony held yesterday at the SRC’s head at Maison Collet.
Veronique Herminie, the Commissioner General of the SRC noted that “on January 26, we marked the Customs Day and each year SRC, including Customs and Tax Division, celebrate the occasion with a mass. But this time, as we are in restriction time, the staff decided that instead of just staying silent, we can mark the event otherwise. So we joined hands and contributed towards a cause. We decided to contribute towards the elderly homes as we see them as the most vulnerable people in the society”.
Mrs Herminie noted that the donation comprises cleaning detergents and items, masks, hygiene products including diapers, hand sanitisers etc. valued at R16 255.
“The elderly is a special group and we always have to show our respect to them. We all have parents and grandparents and I think that is why we all thought of the elderly in our homes during this pandemic. I was also amazed at the amount of money collected, which shows the generosity and charitable spirit of the staff at SRC,” she noted.
The director of the homes for the elderly, Vincent Germain, thanked the SRC for this donation and noted that people/businesses around the country are thinking of them.
“This donation will definitely help us as we have not received our budget yet and we were a bit short on cleaning materials. We will distribute them as soon as we can in the nine homes. In order to function every month, in the homes we need disinfectants, hand sanitisers, masks and mops and buckets,” he said.
Mr Germain added that so far the homes have fortunately been spared of any Covid-19 infection and the residents still want to stay inside their homes and some of them were not ready to take their vaccines.
To note, SRC has 360 staff divided in three divisions – tax, customs and support. During the restriction period, everyday SRC is on duty and has specific times to come to work.
“I would like to thank the staff for giving their time and come to fulfil their duty as without them, we might not have our salary at the end of the month. When there is a lot of Covid-19 cases out there, we analyse the situation and distribute the work accordingly. Like last week, we had to extend our working hours as it was tax collection day on the 21st. Unfortunately SRC also had six positive cases of Covid-19 and more than 50 people were in quarantine (contacts with family members). We worked in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to see how to adjust with the situation. All teams have to have half the number of staff working every day in order to manage our work,” concluded Mrs Herminie.
Vidya Gappy