TAXI ASSOCIATION LAMENTS CANCELLATION OF MEETING WITHOUT NOTICE
(Posted 09th May 2018)
(Committee members of the Seychelles Taxi Association)
On 21st of February did the Taxi Association of Seychelles submit a petition with a list of grievances addressed personally to President Danny Rollen Faure. Three Ministries, those of Tourism, Transport & Finance, then followed up on the grievances at the request of the President and monthly meetings were set up with the ministers responsible for Tourism and Transport with their respective technicians.
This was followed by a series of working meetings chaired by the Principal Secretary of Transport were held between the Taxi Association and representatives from Ministries or Departments of Transport, Tourism, Road Commissioner, Vehicle Testing Station, Finance, Licensing among others.
An important meeting was set for the 7th of May at the last meeting chaired by the Minister of Transport in the presence of the Minister of Tourism where the points discussed and agreed to by the working committee would be tabled for final discussion. Subsequently did the Taxi Operators from Mahe, Praslin and La Digue turn up for the meeting only to be told that it had been cancelled in the Minister’s Diary without any prior notice. No one apparently had the courtesy to advise the Taxi Operators who were acting as representatives on an important transport industry of Seychelles and several of whom had travelled all the way from La Digue and Praslin to Mahe. The PS for Transport in his last Minutes of the Working Committee Meeting of the 19th of April confirmed the follow-up meeting with the Ministers.
The Taxi Association of Seychelles denounced the cancellation of the meeting and said it showed a total lack of respect for Taxi Operators and was a slap in the face for President Faure who had mandated the Tourism Minister to coordinate the meeting to analyse the grievances submitted to his office.
“Taxi Operation is a line of business reserved for Seychellois Nationals and today it shows the little to no respect being shown to the working Seychellois man and woman” said a representative of the Taxi Operators gathered at the Ministry of Transport for the bounced meeting earlier in the week. Another representative said that while individual Ministers change the respective Ministries are expected to continue functioning for Seychelles and for its people.
The Taxi Association has now written to President Faure to express their disappointment and asking for him to personally meet them as they have lost faith in Government Ministries who have no respect for Seychellois.
This latest development comes hot on the heels of government failing to have three ministerial nominees approved by parliament, by parliament throwing out a deal with India to build a military installation on the island of Ascension, the much disputed redundancies at national airline Air Seychelles and the President reducing the size of his cabinet as was reported here.
