Non-Seychellois who wants to purchase land in Seychelles need to apply for sanction under the Immovable Property Transfer (Restriction) Act to the Cabinet of Ministers, the Minister for Land Use & Habitat Joseph Belmont has clarified.

This, he said, was a way of monitoring the sale of land to non-Seychellois.

Minister Belmont was making reference to the last paragraph of our article entitled "Foreigners own less than 4% of land" which appeared on Page 3 in our issue of Monday September 22 and in which it was erroneously stated that "...nothing can be done to prevent foreigners from buying land because it was difficult to monitor the sale by private land owners".

The article in question was a report on Minister Belmont's intervention at last Tuesday's Question Time session when replying to a question by Honourable Barry Faure on how much land in Seychelles belonged to foreigners.

When he was speaking (in the National Assembly) of the difficulty to monitor the sale of land to non-Seychellois, Minister Belmont was refering to the "alleged deals" that Honourable Faure had spoken about whereby non-Seychellois purchase land in the names of Seychellois friends.

This, the minister said, was a bit difficult for the ministry to know of unless concrete proof was provided to the ministry.

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