The Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) of the National Assembly chaired by Hon. Sebastien Pillay met with various entities on Thursday 21st of October 2021. The Auditor General Mr. Gamini Herath was also present throughout all the meetings and assisted the FPAC with queries and suggestions raised in the meetings.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) was first to attend the meeting where they presented and discussed pertinent points from their recently published 2020 annual report. The FIU spoke of their accomplishments and challenges they are facing and the committee was keen to look into different aspects of the FIU’s role and the findings of the report. The committee was notably concerned with the sum of more than 4 billion rupees that has left the country through the bureau de change and what the relevant authorities are doing to ensure that some of this is does not constitute capital flight from the Seychelles. The delegation from the FIU included their Director Mr. Richard Rampal, the Deputy Director Ms. Debra Port Louis, the Operations Manager Ms. Angele Low Sauzier and the Accounts Manager Ms. Wilna Azemia.
The Secretary of State (SS) Patrick Payet, The Comptroller General Ms. Irene Croisee and the Deputy Comptroller Ms. Astride Tamatave from the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Trade (MFEPT) were also present for another meeting with the FPAC following concerns raised from a few entities regarding recruitment prior to Budget discussions which will soon be presented to the National Assembly. The FPAC and the representatives from MFEPT made several suggestions and recommendations and both parties agreed on a way forward.
Last to be hosted by the FPAC was the Public Enterprise Monitoring Commission (PEMC) represented by their CEO Mr. Georges Tirant and the Principal Analyst Ms. Verona Rose. This focused on what the PEMC is doing in relation to SOES and PEs touching on the subject of plans and targets of those entities.
The FPAC also agreed on certain requests for information in relation to several key areas. The members of the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) are: Hon. Sebastien Pillay as Chairperson of the Committee, Hon. Terence Mondon as the Vice-Chair, other members of the Committee are Hon. Richard Labrosse, Hon. Churchill Gill, Hon. Sandy Arissol, Hon. Conrad Gabriel and Hon. Georges Romain.
