Can James Michel be brave enough to be different from Albert Rene?

Everybody seems to have an angle on what is best for the country. And everybody’s angle is better than the next guy’s. The best angle being the exclusive reserve of those cosseted in the People’s House.
That’s the way it has been these past three decades in Seychelles.
Until the Headman from State House made the unprecedented and quite unexpected admission a few days ago, that “Nobody has the monopoly on ideas”.

This now being officially the case, we can all stop griping and unlock our caged ideas. Let these blossom, roam free and fuse with others’. Perhaps, they may even end up providing inspiration to those whose responsibility it is to reckon us all out of the mess they dug us in, in the first place.

To figure out what is best for the country, we need first to know what the condition the country is in and where it wants to go.

After years of customary denials, the Headman has finally admitted that the national economy is in a mess, though his choice of descriptive may have been somewhat more flowery. Part of the blame can be laid at the doorstep of the global economic recession. But only part. The rest of the blame is to be landed right in our own laps for having disregarded for too long, the essential ingredient for economic prosperity: Wealth Generation!

We want the country to provide us all, with a secure and stable environment with rewarding employment, decent public services, utilities and infrastructures, sustainable economic progress with money in the bank for income generating projects, people development, education, housing, health care and trouble-free retirement.

To provide for these, we need to stop pulling out that tired Foreign-Aid basket. We need to take a step back from allowing only the selective club of the international investors, to drink at the fountain of national wealth creation. We need to turn away from the quick fixes, after fast, easy and immediate money, that the erstwhile Headman of 27 years tenure, forced the country into.
We are now well past an Economic Development Act.
We need no longer bother after finding oil within our EEZ. A quarter century of inconclusive research, the dubious long term good and proven evils of that type of fossilised wealth should be warning enough for us to steer clear.
A reality check has shown that we need to move ahead from our dreams to be a regional commercial hub. The only serious international (off-shore) business we seem to attract are those who have lost the moral trust of other nations.

Let us find inspiration in the words of USA President Barrack Obama: “The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run (the country) for far too long." Let us start working for the Seychellois people.

At each individual level, we need to be made to feel included in the overall national wealth generation machinery, with clear, unfettered opportunities, devoid of state interference, open for each of us with the will, and means to do our bit to create our own, little riches. The sum of our individual wealth will add to that from serious investors’ and other partners’, to be that of the nation’s.

We have to start thinking out of the box, if we are to allow the whole nation to fully, freely and effectively participate in wealth generation.
It is not enough to invest in the development of small local industries and agriculture. However important and vital these may be, there is just no way a population of 80K will provide adequate market opportunities for wealth generation based on these two sectors. At best these local enterprises would be a mere service to the community, not unlike the merchants across the district shop counters, with the farmers merely contributing towards national food security. Unless we seek to turn our varied tropical fruits, including the humble breadfruit, into real, competitive export potential and not merely snacks for school kids, animal feed and nocturnal bat banquets!

True wealth lies in bringing in hard currency from real-value product exportation as well as exploitation of our natural resources. Real wealth does not lie in circulating what we create among ourselves.

We had the right targets more than three decades ago. We tapped into the blossoming world tourism market. We talked of development of our marine resources. We sought food self-sufficiency.
We had these right!!.
Then we messed up badly in favour of political expediency and quick fixes. We gave up on serious investments against long- term returns in favour of securing immediate political popularity via state-engineered economic development.

We turned our tourism potential into ‘Haut de Gamme’, making it the preserves of investors with well-lined bank accounts. Our outer islands, once a potential for agricultural development, even Coetivy, that for some time turned out world-famous prawns, have been mostly turned into exclusive resorts that now suffer the caprices of the trade. Five-star resorts slowly evolved to become the order of the day, targeting the exclusively rich.
In this we denied ourselves the reality that the bulk of income from tourism is provided not by film stars and other rich, but by the average European (our main tourism source) household who saved over months to have their annual 10-days under the tropical sun. Thailand, Mauritius, island countries of the Caribbean and elsewhere offering the same tropical setting, did not poke themselves in the eyes.
30 years after we launched ourselves in the tourism adventure, our two original flagships, the Reef Hotel and the Mahe Beach Hotel have all but floundered, along with numerous family guesthouses and cottage accommodation. Exclusive five star resorts abound, all seeking to cater for the needs of the 100K visitors we receive annually. The bulk of whom, would prefer the more modest 3-stars and other like hotels or family guesthouses.
There was never a place allowed in this state-sponsored tourism development for the average family, other than from the other end of that service delivery : as docile (and reportedly - and no wonder - often resentful) help.

After three decades of going round in circles, reality must have struck a park somewhere, when in October 2008, the National Assembly unanimously approved a motion tabled by the Honourable MNA from La Digue, for opening up tourism accommodation to families with convenient facilities to offer.
That was a clear step in the right direction.
Allow the common people to tap into the tourism market. As the motion put it, to offer an authentic and rich experience, the very thing a more informed and concerned tourist wants. Not to be parked and pampered by the artificial comforts of the 5-star resorts, but to be more in touch with the real culture and people of the holiday destination. To feel that the holiday has truly been a direct contribution to making the world a better place to live in. Equitable commerce. As good with tourism as it is with cocoa and coffee. As good as eco-tourism.
That is the way to go.
We need not abandon the 5-star resorts. Nor local investing in modest hotels and guest houses. We only need to allow individual families with a decent spare room, to offer it as tourist accommodation.
Let there be no more talk of ‘Haut de Gamme’.
Let there neither be doors opening to ‘back-pack’ tourists. But let these not be shut off either.
Let there be accommodation to cater for every purse.
Let the common folks get a chance at collecting some spare €s, £s, $s, and SARs.
Let the initiative not be suffocated in unnecessary bureaucratic red tape and regulatory controls, other than those vital to making sure no one kills the golden goose before it even settles on the nest!

More than three decades after we took our place at the Table of Nations, and stood on our national feet, we have not one single ship to harness the riches from our bountiful sea.
Not that we were never or are not aware of the wealth that we have allowed and still allow, others to harvest before our very eyes. We have had recent occasions to hear our Headman bemoan the paltry incomes we derived from licences we give to allow foreign companies’ harvesting the billions in US$ worth of fish in our waters.

We were ready to invest in tanker-building. But not on purse-seining, other than in the ill-fated ‘Spirit of Koxe’ by the possibly well-meaning but naïve and arrogant nomenclatura. And now, someone is chewing on the bone of Tuna ranching!
For Pete’s sake! How could we have been and remain so blind!!

Without cancelling the licences we issue for others to ship in our exclusive economic zone, let us now make it a condition for each foreign fishing vessel licenced to fish in our waters, to have a few of our local trained and experienced fishermen on board. Let us now invest in building our own fleet of purse-seiners, in training the crew to handle and others to maintain and repair it. Let us make it a target to be achieved within the next 10 years.
Let us also focus on the potential of demersal fishing for medium – sized snappers, groupers, ‘capitaines’ and reef fish, with a view to cash in, with competitive costs and quality, on the selective and prized European markets.
Let us explore deep-sea lobster and prawn fishing…our continental plateau may have riches we have not even thought about. Let us explore the full potential for pearl culture! For Marine Algae!
Let us imbue economic life back into our outer islands. We shall use them as regional bases for our varied fishing enterprises, from state – facilitated funding to local investors, but not excluding partnership with foreign capital, as long as we remain in control.

Let us do these things, but let us not be greedy to be rich overnight!
Then we can go out start getting into fair competition and serious fish-trading with our European and Asian partners.

We shall then be getting the share of the wealth we want, are capable of getting by our own hands, and is due to us, from our sea. We shall no longer be moaning at all the loot that passes us by. We shall be counting and spreading it out for the national good.

The sea is out bread. Tourism is the butter.
Tourism is fickle. When the pinch settles in, we can do without it for a time.
The world will always, however, be hungry for fish, sea –food and other sea products!