Agriculture, climate change and environment budgets approved |19 March 2021

Minister for Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment, Flavien Joubert, appeared before the National Assembly yesterday to present the budgets of departments and agencies under his portfolios.

Budget heads that were approved yesterday were for the department of agriculture and department of climate change and environment.

Under the new Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (LDS) government, the agricultural and environment departments have merged under the same ministry.

The mandate of the ministry covers four key sectors, namely agriculture, environment, energy and climate change.

“My first message to the employees of the ministry, when I was first instated as minister, was that they must be aware of the roles they play within the government and play this role efficiently, and according to the correct principles. All employees must understand government’s programmes and policies that involve them and work towards achieving these objectives,” said Minister Joubert.

“Government resources and those it receives from overseas are available to help us deliver on our targets for the country, and should be used for maximum impact,” stated the minister.

I also made it clear to the employees that it is the public that measures our performance and that does not depend on the image we project in the media but on results.”

The National Assembly started off yesterday morning by approving a budget of R6,033,000 for the department of agriculture.

Principal secretary for agriculture Antoine-Marie Moustache was also present to defend the department’s budget.

The department’s strategic priorities for the next three years is to enhance national agricultural production to achieve 50% of the national consumption in pork, broiler poultry and 15 selected vegetables and fruits through local production, as per the Comprehensive Agriculture Plan (2018-2021), through institution building and technical support.

Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) posed numerous questions to Minister Joubert and PS Moustache during the budget discussions.

Honourable John Hoareau, MNA for Beau Vallon, queried on the number of agricultural land currently available and whether the department has undertaken steps to seize land that has not been developed.

“There are 37 plots presently available for agricultural production and can be allocated today. There are many plots that are in the process of being repossessed; I have signed a lot of files to take back these plots during the last three months,” said Minister Joubert.

“We have various cases ‒ there are three cases on Praslin and quite a few on Mahé, and we are allocating them to new farmers, particularly young ones,” he added.

Minister Joubert also noted that Seychelles faces a lack of human resource in the agricultural sector which is a threat to food security in the country.

“We have a lot of expatriate workers in this sector and there is a lack of Seychellois workers in agriculture. So we have to train people who will know what they are doing and can start initiatives to boost agricultural production.”

The budget for the department of environment and climate change was discussed and voted on during the afternoon session.

The department’s R121,871,000 budget was approved with 32 votes in favour.

Presenting the department’s budget, Minister Joubert said that the department’s plans for 2021 is to continue with activities and projects that have already started and place more efforts on priority projects, especially in relation to waste management.

In attendance were principal secretary for environment Alain De Commarmond and principal secretary for climate change and energy Wills Agricole.

“This starts with cleanliness in communities, efficient waste collection symptoms, better integrate recuperation of certain types of waste and educate the public about the proper handling of waste[…] there are new programmes that are geared to start this year,” said the minister.

The process of applying environmental laws is also one of the department’s greatest challenges. To remediate this, the environment department has budgeted R326,000 for the recruitment of an enforcement director to strengthen the enforcement of environment protection by revising existing structures, policies and legislations and introducing new environment schemes.

The total budget of the Ministry of Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment, the sum of R127,904,000, was also approved with 32 votes.

The last vote of the day was for the Seychelles Meteorological Authority (SMA) with a budget of R4,787,000.

The SMA also falls under the portfolio of Minister Joubert and it was also represented by its chief executive Vincent Amelie.

SMA employs around 34 people, of whom 11 are expatriate workers and they are all experts in predicting weather and climate conditions, which Mr Amelie said is a specialised field and SMA does not have a lot of Seychellois workers who are specialised in this domain.

“The Seychellois are their understudies and we have a localisation plan. We expect to replace almost all of the expatriates by 2030 thanks to a programme in which we recruit one or two every year, and make sure they receive overseas training[…]you need a license in order to be able to do this job especially when it comes to aviation meteorology because it has to do with safety,” explained Mr Amelie.

This specialised training takes about three years, Mr Amelie added.

“SMA will have to conclude its discussion on cost recovery to get money from aviation so that SMA can develop its localisation programme and have a better control on it. Because if it has to rely on scholarships from overseas or competes with the scholarship list then it might not be able to train as many people every year,” stated Minister Joubert.

According to Mr Amelie, four Seychellois working with SMA came back from their training with their Bachelor of Science ‒ three in forecasting and one IT.

The authority’s budget was approved unanimously, without much fuss.

Elsie Pointe