The demise of the Port Glaud waterfall

The demise of the Port Glaud waterfall

The infrastructure was to have been developed into a major tourist attraction but the infrastructures are now lying in ruins and the Roman Catholic Church says it is filing a court case as developers have breached their contract.
R. Vidot

The one million dollar project to develop the area was launched with much fanfare in January 2010. The company, Mission Limited, headed by a Russian national, Igor Likhachev had signed a 40 year lease with the proprietor of the land, the Roman Catholic Church, with the possibility of renewing the lease agreement later. The idea was to transform the site into a modern tourist facility. It would have included a viewpoint restaurant catering for 80 guests, photo laboratory, parking areas and even electric cars to take visitors from the bus to the site amongst other attractions.

It was also pointed out at the time that despite the setting up of modern infrastructure, conserving the environment was a top priority.
In fact, construction on the facilities started soon after the launch of the project. Then, everything went quiet. Construction work stopped and the infrastructures that had already begun are now lying in ruins. In all appearances, they are literally falling apart.

TODAY contacted one of the administrators of properties belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, Gerald Pragassen who said there had obviously been a breach of contract. The agreement between the Russian company and the Church makes it clear that construction should have been completed with everything up and running at least three years from the day it was signed. Thereupon, the Church would have received a percentage of the profits made by the company in addition to a monthly rent payment. In fact, Mr Pragassen said the Russian company had stopped making payments altogether since last year. He added that the Church has been left with no choice but to file a case in court sometime soon.

TODAY also spoke to the Minister for tourism, Alain St Ange who said his ministry had lodged a complaint about the state of the waterfall about a year ago. Minister St Ange noted that for the time being, the country had, unfortunately, lost one of its tourism sites.
Meanwhile, the area around the waterfall is said to have been fenced off and reports say the gate to the entrance remains closed except on Sundays. TODAY has not been able to establish contacts with the head of the Russian company or its representatives.

There are several natural heritage sites in Seychelles and they include the Mission Lodge. However, the Port Glaud waterfall is not one of them. The organisation that can declare a site as a natural heritage is the National Monuments Board.

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Bunch of half baked potatoes out there - when we think only in creole our psy get ffffff ed up - Creole psy do not provide the dimension to think in great matters of the world - use English, German, French, Italian - that project was linked to BRICS, Seychelles media and them lots would not tell you. This is the way thing have been done not just in Seychelles in Panama, then we get them dustbin of media and their experts and moderators what they dish out as truth and reality. It is good to know the difference between a spade and a rake or hoe. A cooking pot and a chamber pot. - we have written many threads how President J A Michel is very unlike President F A Rene, he does not have the ability/capacity to work /network those vast complicated thematic and drive positivety in the respective issues, others have to do it for him