Assembly approves new promotion agency for small enterprises

A pottery workshop at the Union Vale industrial zone. The setting up of the new agency has been hailed as a much needed support to the development of small businesses

The National Assembly has endorsed the setting up of a new promotion agency for small enterprises, following the dissolution of the Seychelles Industrial Development Corporation (Sidec).

The Bill seeking the establishment of the Small Enterprise Promotion Agency (Sepa), and which also makes provisions for the repeal of Sidec, was brought before the Assembly on Tuesday May 18, by the Minister for Industries and International Business, Jacquelin Dugasse.

The principal objectives of the agency, Minister Dugasse said, are to implement the policy and strategies pertaining to craft and cottage industries, guide the development and maintenance of infrastructure as well as provide training and assistance in business matters to small entrepreneurs.

Sepa will also be responsible for the management of micro-enterprise centre projects and to identify obstacles to the sustainable development of small enterprises, craft and cottage industries and to propose solutions.

The agency will however not be involved in the management of industrial lands and in the collection of rents.

Schemes that were previously being run by Sidec such as the Youth Enterprise Scheme and EU Credit Line and the management of roads and the environment in the Providence Industrial Estate are in the process of being transferred to relevant financial institutions and ministries.

Sepa will be administered by a board of directors and will have the principal secretary of the Ministry of Industries and International Business as its chairman. Among the board members will be a representative from the craft sector and another one from the small business sector which, according to Minister Dugasse, will enable private stakeholders to have a voice in decisions taken.

For greater transparency the post of managing director for the agency has been advertised, the minister said.

Minister Dugasse said arrangements are being made to give compensations to the staff who were previously employed by Sidec. Depending on their competence some of the staff, he said, could be absorbed by the new agency. 

He said that the government decided last year to dissolve Sidec after a review into its activities and performance was carried out by a seven-member committee. The findings, he said, revealed numerous fundamental problems such as mis-management of the industrial zones, poor collection of rents, bad administration, lack of transparency in decision-making and lack of support for small enterprises. The conclusion was hence reached that Sidec, set up in 1988 as a specialised agency to develop, promote and support small businesses, had not met its objectives, Minister Dugasse said.

The majority of members who intervened, namely Hons. Barry Faure, Bernard Georges and Terrence Mondon welcomed the creation of the new agency which they said was very much needed to support the development of small businesses, especially in this new political climate.

Hon. Georges however argued that amendments could have been made in the act governing Sidec, instead of going through the process of liquidating the corporation to set up the agency which is to have similar objectives.

Hon. Nicholas Prea on the other hand said that Sidec was what he described as “a true case of abuse and corruption”, adding that an independent inquiry should be carried out into the mis-management of funds.

LINKS