Key stakeholders from the financial services and industries like accountants, lawyers, tax agents to name some, met yesterday to review the Companies (Ordinancies) Act (1972) for a modernised business landscape.

The meeting, held at the Eden Bleu conference room, came about after the government of Seychelles received a grant from the Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF) towards the cost of instituting such a review. 

It forms part of the government’s efforts in introducing reforms to provide a timely boost to the economy. A revamped Companies Act is important to the Seychelles economy, and in particular, to small and medium enterprises.

The project management team comprising officers from both the government and private sectors like the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Bar Association and the Accounting Association under the Ministry of Investment, Entrepreneurship Development and Business Innovation, saw the need to revise the current Company Act to detect areas of improvement and to ensure the views of the various stakeholders are collected and incorporated in the policy paper for the new company Bill.

The Seychelles Companies Act, which dates 43 years and has not been thoroughly reviewed and revamped since it was originally enacted in 1972, is based largely on the United Kingdom’s Companies Act 1948, which was superseded by the UK’s Companies Act 1985, which in turn was replaced by UK’s Companies Act 2006. 

Attempts to reform the Seychelles Companies Act in 1995 and 2009 were not successful.

Present at the review session was the Minister for Finance, Trade and the Blue Economy, Jean-Paul Adam; the Minister for Investment, Entrepreneurship Development and Business Innovation, Michael Benstrong; Attorney General Rony Govinden and other dignitaries.

In his speech, Minister Adam noted that now that growth is being generally driven by Seychellois companies, this is why greater emphasis is being put on the SME sector and where the ministry is looking for ways to better support them in terms of their development.

“So the Company’s Act we are talking about today will also go hand in hand with the SME legislation which will also be in full enforcement in the first few months of 2016,” he said.
 
He remarked that it is essential we look at these two pieces of legislations together because it is very much about empowering Seychellois businesses. 

“It is about conceptualising the stake that every Seychellois has in the economy,” said the minister.

He added that the Company’s Act therefore, as already mentioned, work hand in hand with a number of agreements. He cited examples like the SME Act, the new legislation that is about to be brought in in terms of IBCS, other additional products that the country is hoping to benefit from in the national financial services sector and the banking sector through additional services and support through companies.

The minister added today’s deliberations will give an ideal platform for us to further dynamise the private sector in Seychelles and ensure that we have structures that are relevant in terms of growth and provide opportunities as widespread as possible. It will give support to all size of business – those that depend solely on Seychelles market and those beyond.

Remarking that to this date, the legislation still stands before us, more or less in the same state as it has been in 1972 despite the fact that there have been legislations that have been passed in the last twenty years to cater for the international business framework, Minister Benstrong said the Companies Act remained the governing legislation that these Acts link to.

“We all agree that the Companies Act needs to be reformed today to take into account the current changes in the global economy,” said Minister Benstrong.

Regarding the World Bank’s Doing Business index in which Seychelles is ranked 95 out of the 189 countries surveyed, Minister Benstrong believes this is not a true reflection of the “doing business’ environment but also acknowledges that some of the country’s current legislations such as the Companies Act, need urgent review to incorporate international best practices and conform to international standards.