Day: May 5, 2010

CSC and political appointees: what they get paid (Part I)

Eight months after civil servants got their first pay cut, the political situation has deteriorated with law suits between the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Ministry of Finance.

President Mohamed Nasheed promised to reduce government expenditure, primarily by reducing the civil service and increasing privatisation in the country, and several privatisation partnerships are seeing the transfer of posts from the civil service to government-owned institutions.

Many opposed to the civil servant salary cuts have speculated about the amount paid to political appointees, arguing that it is unfair to cut civil servant salaries while paying large salaries and allowances to appointees. Minivan News has obtained the figures from both sides for the sake of comparison.

The civil service VS political appointees

The Maldivian government is currently spending approximately Rf 5 billion on civil servant salaries per year, approximately 74 percent of the Rf 6.8 billion budget. There are over 29,000 civil servants in the Maldives, comprising almost 10 percent of the population.

Documents obtained by Minivan News show that comparatively the government spends approximately Rf 173 million on the salaries of 354 political appointees per year, and around Rf 75.8 million on salaries for 77 MPs each year.

Labourers earn Rf 4,100 a month with the civil service, the lowest paying job in the CSC. The lowest paying job for political appointees is that of island councillors, who make Rf 12,000 a month.

The highest paying job under the CSC is that of a professor, with earnings of Rf 25,350 a month. Excluding the president and vice president, who earn Rf 100,000 and Rf 75,000 a month respectively, cabinet ministers earn Rf 57,500 a month.

The special envoy for science and technology, for example, earns Rf 45,000 a month, while an assistant professor under the CSC makes Rf 20,920 a month.

Press Secretary for the President’s Office, Mohamed Zuhair, said although political appointees get a higher salary, civil servants have better job security “since they have unlimited tenure.”

On the other hand, he said, political appointees can serve a maximum of ten years in their post, “unless they keep jumping parties,” since a government can only hold two five-year terms.

“A political appointee will fall with the government,” Zuhair added. “But a civil servant can serve for forty, fifty years.”

He said political appointees also have a more authoritative role than civil servants, justifying a higher salary: “If they are not in an authoritative role, how can they be effective?”

Zuhair said political appointees comprise less than two percent of the civil service, and they are the ones “who supervise and ensure the civil servants do their jobs.” Hence, they deserve a higher salary, he added.

Additionally, he said, not all political appointees are “appointed. Some of them are elected.”

One of President Nasheed’s campaign promises was reducing the “top-heavy” government by reducing the number of political appointees, and according to Zuhair, there are fewer political appointees under this government than the previous one.

Minivan News reported in April last year there had been 440 political appointees under former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s government, and at the time, there were 538 political appointees under President Nasheed’s government.

Zuhair told Minivan News today that when the civil service was created in 2007, the former government transferred many of its appointees to posts in the civil service “so in case they lost the election, they still have many people with them.”

He added the former government was “not counting right” and their numbers “weren’t technically correct,” as they had everyone, including muezzins, working for them as political appointees.

In mid-March 2010, Independent MP Mohamed Nasheed requested a list of political appointees and their salaries from the Ministry of Finance, to clarify exactly how many appointees were working under the government.

Another of President Nasheed’s promises was to reduce the civil service and thus reduce government expenditure. The health sector is one of the first industries to go through this transition.

Member of the CSC, Mohamed Fahmy Hassan, said there have been many posts which have been abolished from the CSC and transferred to independent institutions, such as TV Maldives and and newly formed Maldives Health Services Corporation.

“The number of civil servants will be less now,” Fahmy said, “but the question is, how do you define public service?”

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MDP needs Adhaalath, says Reeko Moosa

The ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) could not govern the country without the religious conservative Adhaalath party, MDP Parliamentary Group Leader “Reeko” Moosa Manik has said.

Addressing supporters at the MDP rally on Monday night, Moosa said Adhaalath party has played an important role in the government and had overseen religious matters capably.

“MDP will not sever ties with Adhaalath. That will not happen,” he said. “It would be very difficult for us to carry on with our good governance without the Adhaalath party.”

Moosa apologised to the religious scholars of Adhaalath as he could “say anything when I get too excited”.

“Because we hear every other day someone from the coalition say, ok, we’re leaving now,” he said.

Earlier this year, Moosa attacked senior officials of the Islamic ministry for publicly criticising the government while still “turning up for work every day and regularly collecting pay checks”.

In March, the Islamic ministry came out against regulations revised by the economic development ministry to authorise sale of alcohol in hotels.

The revised regulations were scrapped following public outcry and demonstrations.

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Children kept in Feydhufinolhu centre indefinitely, confirm police

The Maldives Police Service have confirmed they have taken kids from the streets whom they suspect could become involved in crimes, and placed them in a Correctional Training Centre on Feydhufinolhu for an indefinite duration, without a court order.

The children taken to the centre, who are under the age of 18, are kept “until we can guarantee that they are fully ready to be released into society,” said Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam.

”They are kids who are on the streets, and do not attend school,” Shiyam said. ”We only take the children after informing their parents and after they have agreed.”

Many children taken to the centre “are illiterate and do not even know how to pray,” he said, explaining that they were taught subjects like Islam, handicrafts and computing.

”We have 18 children in the centre,” he said. ”We have not released any kid since [it opened in] August.”

”At first some parents were not satisfied,” Shiyam said, ”but later they realised that their children’s behaviour was improving, and now they are happy.”

He said that the date the kids would be handed back to their parents was yet to be decided.

However, a 16 year old boy who was kept in the centre for over two months told Minivan News on condition of anonymity that many kids had been released from the centre, ”hurting the morale of the kids left behind.”

He said parents were told that the kids were being taken to the centre for a special programme and would be released after six months.

”But one day the Commissioner of Police came and said that they had made the duration for 3 months,” he said. ”All the kids were very happy and were hoping to meet their families and loved ones soon.”

He said it had now been more than seven months: ”They released some of them, and kept the rest,” he said. ”There are kids there taken from Fuvamulah, Addu and Male’.”

He said that he was taken while sitting in front of his house.

”Police suspected that I was involved in a stabbing case and took me away,” he said. ”Everyone there is so young and so isolated and stressed – on September 5 a kid there even attempted suicide because he missed his Mum and Dad. Everyone feels like they have been banished.”

He claimed that the police only gave the children a five minute phone call to speak with their families, and that many parents confused about what was going on and when their children would be released.

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Salaf to host ‘The Call’ with Dr Bilal Philips

The religious NGO Jamiyyathul Salaf has announced it will host a series of religious sermons named ”The Call”.

Secretary General of Salaf Mohamed Sobah said that the sermons would be delivered by Dr Bilal Philips from Canada,  and Abdul Raheem Green from United Kingdom.

Sobah said that the sermons would be delivered for four nights.

”the events will be from 3 to 6 June,” Sobah said, ” it will be held at the Alimas Carnival Stage.”

Sobah said that the events will be held everyday from 4 pm to 10:3pm, and that the NGO was expecting more than 10,000 people to attend the sermons.

”The Islamic Ministry is fully cooperating and providing assistance to us,” he said.

He said that the NGO had launched a website for the event, at www.thecall.mv.

”We have many sponsors for the event,” he said, ”which shows that a lot of people support the event.”

Dr Bilal Philips was once brought to the Maldives by Salaf last year. Many people attended the sermon and more than 100,000 people watched it via media.

Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair said President Mohamed Nasheed naturally supported any religious event in the Maldives.

”If he had time he would attend these sermons himself,” Zuhair said.

He said that Islamic Ministry was a part of the government and that president supported any event the Islamic Ministry assisted and supported.

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Press freedom includes freedom from subsidies: President Nasheed

President Mohamed Nasheed has promised the Maldivian government “will not touch the press, and will not harass the press” despite the existence of rules and regulations to do so, a legacy of the former government.

“We [don’t] want to do this because we believe a free press is responsible for consolidating democracy,” he said, speaking to visiting dignitaries at the closing ceremony of the South Asia Regional Consultation on Freedom of Information.

At the same time, he said, the government did not want to subsidise the press either.

“Right now we are still subsidising the press – especially in terms of land,” Nasheed said. “This is very sad – the government has subsidised one of the very big newspapers with land, and is unable to similarly subsidise any other paper.”

Nasheed said he was “told every day that we should stop that subsidy to that newspaper, but it is one of the most established newspapers – whatever side they take – and is very well laid out with nice pictures.”

Television stations VTV and DhiTV were last week collectively the beneficiaries of nearly 50 percent of a ‘one-off’ Rf4 million subsidy approved and allocated by the same parliamentary committee. 35 percent was allocated to radio and the remaining 15 percent to print media. Online media, including Minivan News, was exempted from subsidies.

Improving the media

Nasheed said he would not invoke the phrase ‘responsible journalism’, as it was “very often a phrase used by politicians when they want to gag journalists.”

“In my mind all journalism is responsible – but how responsible it is depends on where you stand and how you are reading it. When you praise me, I might see it as very responsible – but someone else might see it as very irresponsible. I have always thought that any amount of criticism should be tolerated.”

The press, the president said, should be left to self-determine at the hands of market forces and “come up with their own ideas and sense of responsibility and how they want to behave and report to the public.”

In the spirit of this claim, “one of the first things we did when we came to government was to stop printing the pro-government, pro-party newspaper Minivan Daily. We did this at a great cost to ourselves, because there was no one to report the government point of view, and we understood the gap it would create.”

The government should appear in the news by virtue of its newsworthiness, Nasheed said, “not because we force or pay others to write about us, and not because we have a government subsidised newspaper. Let us stand behind podiums and try to bring the government viewpoint across.”

Successive governments had abolished the newspapers of the previous regimes, he noted, and all the regulations to control the media were still present.

“I have been criticised by many of my friends in my party for not doing this, and therefore not being able to bring the government viewpoint across,” he said.

“I am hoping there will be at some point in time when people will realise that a certain news agency is not always coming out with the truth or being responsible – that people will decide to stop reading or listening to inaccurate media. We believe market forces will encourage media to produce reasonably accurate reports.”

Nasheed said a number “of very dynamic news agencies” in the Maldives had already begun shifting the manner and outlook in which they write, “so people are fairly reported.”

The manner in which the country dealt with media dissidents had progressed markedly, the President said.

“When I was first arrested [under the former government] the gentlemen in the cell next to be one of the best writers in the Maldives, Ahmed Waheed. He was an excellent writer, you couldn’t get better prose from anyone.

“For me, this talk of press freedom has always consolidated itself in this person. After seven months [in prison] he broke. When he was finally released was become totally retarded, he stopped writing, thinking, talking, conversing with anyone. We are unable to salvage or find him at all.”

“I’m not saying this to point out that previous administration was vindictive, or highlight their ways and means and methods, but to point out that this is what we have been facing.”

Nasheed noted that the current government “does not have a journalist in prison, and does not intend to have a journalist in prison.”

This, he said, was despite many of the country’s “most creative” journalists still retaining their connections “to agencies of the previous government.”

“Our core governance and values are very clear regarding press freedom. We want to be as fair as it is possible to be in the world, not as fair as it is dictated by South Asia or even the United Nations,” he declared.

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MP sends first proposal to amend Constitution

MP for Dhaal, Kudahuvadhoo, Ahmer Amir, sent the first proposal to Parliament to amend the Constitution, reports Miadhu.

Amir proposed to amend Article 231 (c) which stipulates local council’s term shall be of three years. He proposed to change it to a five year term, arguing that having elections every three years would be very costly.

This is the first proposal for amending the Constitution of the Maldives since it was adopted in August 2008.

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US Pacific Command visiting the Maldives

President Mohamed Nasheed met with the National Security Act Assessment team of the US Pacific Command who are visiting the Maldives.

The meeting took place at the President’s Office yesterday, where they focused on formulating a national defense and security plan.

President Nasheed said the main areas concerning national defense and security are terrorism, piracy in the Western Indian Ocean and drug trafficking.

The US Pacific Command, led by Army Attaché to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Smith, said they would assist the Maldives in further strengthening the national security framework.

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DRP-PA coalition still strong, says Yameen

Leader of the People’s Alliance (PA), Abdulla Yameen, has said that recent statements by Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) members that the PA walked out on the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP)-PA coalition agreement is not true, reports Miadhu.

Yameen said the rumours were started to make MDP supporters happy, and to cause friction between himself and Qasim Ibrahim, founder and leader of Jumhoory Party, who recently joined the coalition.

The PA said the party could only back out of the coalition if the council decided to, and said the council had not considered the option.

Qasim later said he will accept any party’s work as long it is being done to improve people’s lives.

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NSPA introduces family package

The National Social Protection Agency (NSPA) has introduced a family package with a 50 per cent discount for its Madhana health insurance programme.

According to Haveeru, Ibrahim Waheed, NSPA Chairman, said the government would match the participant’s Rf1,000 if three or more people are included in the insurance scheme.

The package was introduced following complaints from the public over difficulties in paying the Rf2,000 annual charge, said Waheed.

Over 52,700 people have signed up for the Mahana health insurance policy.

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