Where the money is best spent-on MNA compensation or reducing housing loans for the vulnerable?
Political leaders in the opposition were last week asked to comment on the government’s decision to reduce the housing loan repayment for its clients by 25%. It was clearly an election move, but which government does not play its trump card before elections? The questions put by journalist had the politicians caught. While some definitely managed to respond in an upright manner others found themselves in a vocabulary quagmire.One Seychelles’ Alain St. Ange rightly said that right now the focus should be on alleviating the suffering of the most vulnerable who are heavily impacted by COVID19. He did however forget that the reductions would help in that way.
St.Ange also pointed out that it is ridiculous for LDS to shout foul since they were the ones who approved the revised budget and gave the government the money (1.2Billion) to spend.
While Patrick Pillay was precise in his answer saying that now is not the time for such measures, LDS’ Wavel Ramkalwan found himself going around and round the topic. He started by saying that yes he is aware that the housing payment greatly impacts on families’ budget and that some have hardly anything left after the deduction. However, he then went on to say that government is spending lavishly as if it has money to spare and that this measure is an example of the extravagant spending.
The counterattack from the United Seychelles party was priceless. US pointed out that it is the role of the President to step in and alleviate the suffering of his people. Andy Jean Louis aptly pointed out that the most affected industry -tourism is the biggest employer and that while the FA4JR programme is securing the basic salary of the workers, they have lost all other benefits such as their service charge, which most of the time easily surpasses their basic salary in amount. He said that those people still have to pay their housing loans and that this measure will help them to be able to cope!
Housing still remains an election trump card and this reduction offer also happens whenever the election race promises to be tight. While LDS is focusing on showing the dire living conditions of some citizens, One Seychelles has been pushing for fairness and more timely allocation of state funded houses. In the meantime, Danny Faure and company have almost completed their 24 houses in twenty four districts in 24 months and have been handing the key to the new owners, just in time for the elections. The timing raises questions about the delays many of these projects have experienced. Were the issues real or was it all part of a strategy?
However, what the public is now asking is whether the state money is not best spent on reducing the burden of payment on the man on the street rather than paying the MNAs their big end of term payment and compensation. This payment has amounted to over 27 million rupees with each MNA guaranteed around eight to nine hundred thousand rupees to take home!
