Eight families to benefit from new housing project in Au Cap   By Mandy Bertin   |06 October 2023

A partial view of the Le Domaine Phase II housing project in Au Cap

Eight families are expected to receive keys to their new homes next week following the official handover to the government of the Le Domaine Phase II housing project in Au Cap.

The construction of these three-bedroom units started in November 2022 and took nine months for completion.

A short ceremony was held yesterday whereby the general manager of the Green Island Construction Company Limited (GICC), Angelique Antat, handed over the symbolic key to the Minister for Lands and Housing, Billy Rangasamy.

The key was then presented to the chief executive of the Property Management Corporation, Francis Collie.

This was in the presence of Vice-President Ahmed Afif; member of the National Assembly for Au Cap, Kelly Saminadin; principal secretary for housing, Jude Florentine and that of lands, Denis Barbe; chief executives of various agencies within the Ministry of Lands and Housing and other members of staff as well as the district administrator of Au Cap, Sabrina Assary.

Last year, the ministry decided to revise its affordable housing policy, hence there was a need to revise the designs of the affordable housing units. The aim was to make the units more affordable so that maximum people could go onto house purchase agreements, and ensuring that affordable housing programme becomes more sustainable.

The ministry partnered with GICC to carry out a pilot project and value engineer the design from a contractor’s perspective, to see how the cost could be minimised by ensuring a more practical design.

Addressing the invitees at the ceremony, Minister Rangasamy said the partnership has also provided the chance to get other benefits from the project.

“Prior to starting the project, it was agreed with the contractor that we would undertake the project as an open-book project whereby GICC would share the full breakdown of the costs associated with the project,” he said.

This includes the material cost, labour component, transportation and profits and overheads.

The minister added that this was vital information for the government to get a better understanding of the cost dynamics of the construction industry in Seychelles, which will help to identify the focus areas that need to be tackled to reduce the cost of construction.

Minister Rangasamy added that even if there has been a marked improvement in the workmanship and quality of construction for the affordable housing projects, this project showcases that the benchmark needs to be set higher.

“The workmanship and quality of finishing that we see here today will be used as a marker to improve both internal benchmarks for quality control by our technical staff, as well as the expectations from other contractors in the industry undertaking similar projects for government,” he added.

The minister also spoke about the time taken to carry out such project.

He said through the engineering re-design of one of the standard blocks, it has been noted that there is significant potential for reducing the timeframe to carry out such projects.

“Though this may not be possible on all sites, it is certainly a chance to explore further where possible. This is in line with our strategy of exploring alternative construction methodologies and technologies which we are continuing to explore as a means of reducing both time and cost on projects without compromising on the quality.”

Another benefit of this project is space utilisation. Those present had the chance to visit an unfurnished apartment as well as a furnished one as a mock-up, with the aim of showcasing how the reduced size of the apartment is still a very comfortable space as long as the furnishing is done in a responsible and efficient manner.

Speaking to the media, the chief executive of the Seychelles Infrastructure Agency, Jitesh Shah, said loan agreements were signed recently by the Ministry of Finance, National Planning and Trade and the Saudi Fund for Development (SDF) to finance housing projects, and two other blocks to be constructed at the site will fall under SDF.

He added that the construction of the two blocks will be placed on tender.

The accompanying photos show views of an unfurnished as well as furnished apartments.

Photos by Joena Meme