Day: May 10, 2012

Three bills returned to parliament

Three bills have been returned to the People’s Majlis by President Mohamed Waheed Hassan for reconsideration and amendment.

The Business Registration Bill, the Corporate Tax Bill and the Sole Trader Bill passed respectively on April 23, 24 and 25, 2012, have all been sent back to parliament for revision, according to the President’s Office website.

In a letter to Parliamentary Speaker Abdulla Shahid, President Waheed detailed several concerns said to have been raised by the attorney general.

The exact nature of these concerns was not detailed by the President’s Office.

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Tourism Minister looks for alternative sources after loss from lease payments

Minister for Tourism Ahmed Adheeb has said that the Tourism Ministry will work on ways to increasing its revenue, acknowledging that income lost from changes to island lease payments would leave its earnings far short of those predicted in the budget.

“The expected amount from lease rent will not be acquired within the year. This is about Rf 500 million (US$32 million). We are looking for ways to compensate for the loss. Discussions on the issue will start next week,” Haveeru reported Adheeb as saying.

The current government recently re-interpreted a clause in the Tourism act, allowing the payment of island lease extensions to be made in installments rather than up front, as had previously been the case.

The Maldives Inland Revenue Authority’s (MIRA) figures for March revealed that the government received over Rf350 million (US$23 million)less that month than anticipated in the budget.

The IMF’s suggestions that the Tourism Goods and Services Tax (TGST) be raised to 12 percent would not be the only method discussed within the ministry to compensate for the lost income.

“The discussions are not to simply discuss increasing the amount of TGST charged from resorts. The government has not decided to increase TGST to 12 percent. The government wants to find out the ways from which the tourism industry can compensate for the amount of predicted loss,” Haveeru reported.

The Majlis Financial Committee revealed this week that the current budget deficit would reach 27 percent of GDP by the end of this year.

Head of the Majlis’s Financial Committee, Deputy Speaker and People’s Alliance (PA) MP Ahmed Nazim, revealed that government revenue for 2012 would be Rf2.6 billion (US$168.6 million) less than the projected amount of Rf10.87 billion (US$704 million) – a drop of 23 percent.

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Report “incomplete” without MDP cooperation: Inquiry Commission

The Commission of National Inquiry (CNI) has said their report on the circumstances surrounding the transfer of power on February 7 will be “incomplete” without the ousted Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP) cooperation.

New President Mohamed Waheed Hassan charged the CNI to assess the change of leadership following former President Mohamed Nasheed’s allegation that he was ousted in a coup d’état, carried out by mutinous elements of the police and military. Waheed was Nasheed’s Vice President.

However, the MDP has refused to recognise the CNI, claiming the commission is neither independent nor impartial, and has raised concerns over former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s Defense Minister Ismail Shafeeu chairing the commission.

The Commonwealth has also warned of “stronger measures” against the Maldives if the government fails to revise the composition and mandate of the CNI by May 16.

However, speaking to the press on Thursday, Shafeeu said it was “not suitable” for him to resign, and has said the matter must be decided between the government, political parties and foreign groups.

Meanwhile, President Waheed has affirmed commitment to the Commonwealth and said he looked “forward to resolve any outstanding issues involving the CMAG” including that of the CNI composition. Waheed’s remarks were sourced from a press release published by PR Newswire on Wednesday, and widely disseminated to world media.

However President’s Office spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza was reported in local newspaper Haveeru today as stating that there was no thought of changing the composition of the commission.

MDP cooperation

CNI member Ali Fawaz Shareef said the commission had interviewed 77 people and “had received some responses from the MDP.”

Two individuals from the MDP requested to give statements had refused, Shareef said, but declined to state whether former President Nasheed was among the two.

Without the MDP’s cooperation, the commission’s report to be published by May 31 “would not be complete,” CNI member Ibrahim Yasir Ahmed said.

“However, we have interviewed many people so far, and we believe we can issue a very good report,” Yasir said.

The CNI faced “difficulties” when parties refused to cooperate with the commission, Shafeeu added.

“This commission will not take legal action against anyone regarding information shared with this commission. The only thing we are doing is gathering information,” he said. The CNI has previously said it would not conduct a criminal investigation.

The report will note missing information and will also include any relevant statements made in the public domain, the commission members said.

President Waheed has met with the CNI on Tuesday to give his account of the transfer of power.

Meanwhile, the MDP has launched its own investigation into the transfer of power, and President Nasheed has given a statement to the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) regarding a brutal police crackdown on MDP supporters at a peaceful protest on February 8.

Shafeeu resignation

The CNI has long said the government must authorise any changes in its composition, but President Waheed on April 25 said it was up to the commission to allow new members to join the inquiry.

“We have no role in the reformulation of the commission. They do not have to discuss the matter with us either. The government can reformulate the commission as they see fit,” CNI member Yasir repeated on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Shafeeu said the government, political parties and foreign groups must decide whether to dismiss him from the CNI. “If the outcome of political negotiations is that I must go, it will not be difficult to get me out of here. I will just go home like I do every day when I finish work,” he told reporters.

The MDP has criticised the lack of cross-party consultation in compiling the committee and the lack of international experts on the committee.

“It has been conceived and imposed by those parties allied to Dr Waheed without any consultation with MDP. It does not include any eminent international experts. And the inclusion of individuals who held Cabinet posts during the autocratic government of former President Gayoom, including the appointment of a Chair – Mr Ismail Shafeeu – who had held various ministerial posts under former President Gayoom including the position of Defense Minister at a time of widespread human rights abuses in the country, suggests that no effort has been made to ensure independence and impartiality,” the MDP stated in February.

Local civil society groups have also urged the government to seek cross-party support in formulating the commission.

Commitment to the Commonwealth

As the Commonwealth deadline for CNI review draws near, Dr Waheed said the Maldives government would meet with Special Envoy Sir Don McKinnon on Thursday to affirm the Maldives’ commitment to the Commonwealth and the CMAG and “any outstanding issues since his last visit.”

“The Maldives government wants to make progress with the Commission of National Inquiry following previous discussions with the Commonwealth about its composition,” the statement read.

The statement quoted President Waheed as saying: “I look forward to constructive talks with Sir Don McKinnon. I will be telling Sir Don that as a government, we are completely committed to the Commonwealth and I look forward to resolving any outstanding issues involving CMAG.”

Meanwhile, MP of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM), Ahmed Ilham, and Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) MP Riyaz Rasheed have submitted a bill to parliament that could see the Maldives withdraw itself from the Commonwealth within 60 days of ratification. Both parties have backed Dr Waheed.

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Maldives ranks 45th best place to be a mother among developing nations

Maldives has been ranked as the 45th best place to be a  mother among 80 developing nations compared in international NGO Save the Children’s 13th State of the World’s Mothers report.

The ranking includes 165 countries split into three categories – 43 more developed  countries , 80 less developed countries and 42 least developed countries.

Norway is ranked first, ahead of Iceland and Sweden, while Niger is the worst place to be a mother in the world – replacing Afghanistan for the first time in two years.

The Maldives landed first out of  42 countries listed in the ‘least developed’ tier of the 2011 mother’s index rankings.

However, with the transition to a less developed country status from January 2011, the Maldives was placed in the second tier in 2012, which looked at 80 developing countries across the globe, out of which the island nation ranked 45th.

That puts Maldives three points below the neighboring Sri Lanka but far ahead of India, Pakistan and several other Islamic nations in the Middle East.

“More than 90 years of experience on the ground has shown us that when mothers have health care, education and economic opportunity, both they and their children have the best chance to survive and thrive,” said President and CEO of Save the Children USA, Carolyn Miles, in the report.”But many are not so fortunate.”

“Alarming numbers of mothers and children in developing countries are not getting the nutrition they need. For mothers, this means less strength and energy for the vitally important activities of daily life. It also means increased risk of death or giving birth to a pre-term, underweight or malnourished infant,” Miles observed.

She added: “For young children, poor nutrition in the early years often means irreversible damage to bodies and minds during the time when both are developing rapidly. And for 2.6 million children each year, hunger kills, with malnutrition leading to death.”

Maldives achievements

The 45th ranking was derived from the Maldives’ performance in the factors or areas measured for the State of the World’s Mothers report, including the mother’s health, education and economic status, as well as critical child indicators such as health, mortality rate and nutrition.

The statistics included in the report shows that in the past six years the Maldives with a population of approximately 350,000 has achieved notable success in improving the maternal health, thus achieving the goal 5 of Millennium Development Goals.

According the report, lifetime risk of maternal deaths in Maldives has been significantly reduced to 1 per 1200 and females have a life expectancy of 77 years while under-five mortality rate dramatically declined to 15 per 1000, compared to 41 per 1000 in 1990, as the country’s 95 percent of births are attended  by a skilled health worker.

Almost 95 percent of the population has access to safe drinking water and the school enrollment ratio remains significantly high, the report adds.

Maldives Health Statistics Report 2011 concluded: “Overall it can be said that the trends show improvement in the health and wellbeing of people in the Maldives”.

These successes were attributed to the effective immunisation programs, and improved accessibility of health services across the islands.

“Consistent improvements in quality of services are crucial to sustain these developments and further the achievement” the report read.

Challenges

Predictably, the statistics revealed that the Maldives needs to improve on areas of reproductive health with increasedaccess to contraceptives, economic and political participation of women and dietary needs of children –  issues highlighted by the stake holders in various platforms.

  • Malnutritution: Minivan News reported in April about the increasing concern among the health experts as malnutrition in the country remains “quite alarming” considering the number of medical advances made in the country over the last few years. According to figures published in 2009 by the World Health Organisation (WHO), 17.8 percent of children under five years of age were found to be underweight in the Maldives according to international standards for ascertaining health in young people. The same figures found that 6.5 percent of children were classed as overweight in the country. 20.3 percent of children in the same age group were found to be suffering from ’stunting’, a term describing children suffering growth retardation as a result of poor diet and infection
  • Economic and Political Participation: Gender inequality is one of the social determinants at the heart of inequity in health, so progress in  equal participation of women is crucial. However, with the Maldives’ Islamic background, the society prescribes predominantly domestic and traditional roles for women, while men take the role of breadwinner.According to the ‘Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2009-2010′, out of the 38,493 people unemployed in 2010, 63 percent were women, almost double the male rate of unemployment. Meanwhile in the political sphere, women’s representation is significantly low with only 57 out of 1091 are island level councilor seats filled by women and 5 out of 77 Parliament members as women.

    “The absence of childcare facilities make it difficult for women to remain employed after they have children. HRCM also received reports that some employers discouraging women from marriage or pregnancy, as it could result in employment termination or demotion,” the UNDP ‘s “Women in Public Life in the Maldives”report said.

    Restrictions on women’s mobility and reluctance from family members to allow women to travel alone to other islands for work were also identified as key obstacles to employment.

  • Reproductive Health and Access to Contraception: Greater attention to improving sexual and reproductive health care and universal access to all its aspects are required to prevent unintended pregnancies and provide high- quality pregnancy and delivery care, according according to the UNFPA in the Maldives.However, there is social stigma surrounding the purchase of contraceptives and “talks” of sex several reproductive illnesses.

    Data suggests that contraceptive prevalence rate for modern methods declined from 34 per cent  in 2004 to 27 per cent in 2009, and the number of adolescent pregnancies has increased. Abortion is illegal, yet the number of women experiencing complications from unsafe abortions is reported to be increasing.

    “These complications, along with the high contraceptive discontinuation rate and the high unmet need for family planning, are jeopardising previous gains in maternal health. Policies and services do not adequately address the reproductive health needs,” UNFPA said in the country programme document (2011-2015) for Maldives.

    While Maldivian women aged 15-49 is expected to grow for the next 30 years, the Maldives needs a comprehensive program to create awareness and set up wider adequate reproductive and maternal health facilities and services.

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Thai real-estate developer to withdraw from Hulhumale’ housing project

Thai newspaper The Nation has reported that Pruksa, Thailand’s largest real-estate developer, is withdrawing its investment in the Maldives after suffering a US$3.2 million loss.

In an interview last week with Pruksa CEO Thongma Vijitpongpun, The Nation reported that the company was pulling out of the Maldives after making losses of Bt (Thai Baht) 100million.

In 2010, Pruksa formed a joint venture agreement with the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), formerly the Hulhumale’ Development Corporation, to build over 1000 houses in Hulhumale’. That company, Pruksa-HDC Housing Pvt Ltd, began construction of the first phase of the project, consisting of around 180 units, in August 2010.

Mohamed Sharah, the Assistant Director of Corporate Affairs, Marketing and Business Development, was unable to confirm whether the company had withdrawn from the agreement. Sharah also acts as Pruksa’s Company Secretary in the Maldives.

“We have not been informed [of the decision], the work on the first phase still continues and will be completed by July,” said Sharah.

The first phase, explained Sharah, consisted of nine blocks containing 180 apartments, six of which have been completed, with four already having been handed over to customers. The first phase is scheduled for completion by July.

There were some initial problems with the quality of construction work on the first two of these buildings which caused some delays to the project while work was redone to the standards required by the quality control officer.

The 180 units were pre-sold in Maldivian rufiyaa before construction. In a previous interview with The Nation, a representative from Pruksa anticipated a profitable venture.

“We started to pre-book our project in the Maldives last month for the first phase of 180 units. Demand is for more than that amount and as a result we believe our presales in the Maldives will exceed our estimate,” the company’s Chief Business Officer was reported as saying in June 2010.

However, Sharah explained that this policy had “caused significant losses” for the company due to problems with the local currency.

“They have faced devolution of the currency and a shortage of dollars in the Maldives,” he added.

The price of rufiya at the time when most of the units were sold was pegged at Rf12.85 to the US dollar. However, in April 2011, the government made the decision to introduce a managed floatation of the currency. This decision allowed the rufiya to be traded within a 20percent margin of its previous rate. The result has been the devaluation of the currency to a rate of 15.42 to the US dollar – which still remains next to unexchangable outside the blackmarket, where rates can top Rf 17-18 to the dollar.

That problem is likely to continue after the government’s budget deficit was predicted to reach 27 percent of the country’s GDP in 2012, according to figures recently released by the Majlis Finance Committee.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s head of mission to the Maldives, Jonathan Dunn, recently told Minivan News: “As long as the government continues to inject substantial amounts of new spending into the economy, the foreign exchange situation in the country will not be resolved.”

The net result of Pruksa’s exposure to rufiya may account for the US$3.2 million losses the company CEO reported to The Nation.

HDC told Minivan News that 90 percent of the units were sold using the pre-booking system. The initial value of the apartments was reported to have been between Rf0.9million and Rf1.6 million.

The change in exchange rates in the period following these sales means that between US$1.8million and US$3.3million from Pruksa’s projected income may have been lost from the sale of these units alone.

During the same interview in The Nation, the CEO explained that the company was restructuring to a more profitable model, in part due to the losses suffered during last year’s flooding which afflicted much of Thailand.

However, it was mentioned that the company was considering expansion into the ASEAN nations of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Phillipines. The CEO also announced that projects in Vietnam and India, temporarily suspended in the first half of this year, would continue.

A representative of Pruksa in the company’s Bangkok office was unable to confirm the cessation of the company’s dealing in the Maldives. He did confirm that a representative of the company would be visiting the Maldives later this month, at which time more details would be made available.

The spokesperson was able to confirm that the most of the apartment sales took place 18 months ago and were transacted in rufiya.

“There were some problems with that,” the spokesman noted.

The Hulhumale’ project is regarded as the most ambitious urban development project in the history of the country. The reclamation of land and the internal migration of Maldivians to the island, which lies adjacent to the capital Male’, is seen as vital in the country’s long term plans for economic development of the nation and for the easing of congestion in the capital city.

“If Pruksa withdraws, the HDC will have to find new investment,” said Sharah.

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Inmates at Maafushi Prison ordered to trim beards to be eligible for parole, claims family member

Inmates in Maafushi Prison have been handed a notice informing them that they must have short hair and trimmed or shaved beards in order to be eligible for parole, a family member of an inmate informed Minivan News.

The source told Minivan News that the notice handed to inmates states that according to Prison Order 12, article 1.5, inmates shall not grow their hair and beard unless for “a medical purpose”, and hair must be trimmed or shaved, or they would not be eligible for parole.

The notice also stated that in a meeting held by the Parole Board on April 11, 2012, the board decided to consider hair as a disciplinary issue when selecting inmates for parole, and that inmates who insisted on long hair or growing their beards would have it recorded as a misdeed in their disciplinary record, according to the source.

The notice was made in compliance with Second Chance Program Office memo number 479/167/2012/113, Minivan News was informed.

When considering parole the board will check for record of misdeeds over the past six months.

Parole Board Chair Dr Ali Shahid Mohamed meanwhile denied that the Parole Board made such a decision.

‘’We are not mandated to determine the regulations and rules of the prison, we only see their disciplinary records and we will see what progress the inmate has made in prison,’’ Shahid said.

Shahid said he does not know what the prison regulations stated about beard and hair.

‘’We did not make any specific decision related to hair or beard in the meeting that day, we enhanced an earlier decision to consider the inmates disciplinary record when releasing inmates on parole,’’ he said.

Parole Board member from Department of Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Service (DPRS) Bilal did not respond to calls at time of press.

DPRS Director General Mohamed Rasheed’s mobile phone was switched off.

In November last year a group of prison guards working in Maafushi Prison filed a case at the Maafushi Court after they were ordered to shave off their beards.

Maafushi Court ruled that growing a beard for men in Islam is more than a Sunnah and almost ‘waajib’ (obligatory), and that prison officers should not be asked to shave off their beards.

In March this year the High Court invalidated the ruling saying that Maafushi Court gave no opportunity for the defendant – the Department of Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Services (DPRS) – to say anything before the case was concluded, and that therefore the ruling was unlawful.

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Police vehicle collides with MDP supporters on Fuvamulah, injures two

A police vehicle collided with a group of Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) supporters while it was en-route to a crime scene on Fuvamulah in Gnaviyani Atoll, where a gang had stabbed one man, injured two others and damaged parked motorcycles.

In a statement, police said the vehicle collided with a motorcycle that had turned into Ghaazee Road.

People in the area when the incident occurred vandalised the police vehicle and assaulted police officers in the vehicle, read the police statement.

Police said two persons injured in the accident, as well as the gang attack victim, were admitted to Fuvamulah Hospital.

However online newspaper ‘Kattelhi’, based in Fuvamulah, reported that the  police vehicle was returning from the crime scene at around 9:30pm when it collided with a motorcyclist, causing the driver to lose control and crash into parked motorcycles. The paper alleged the vehicle was travelling at a very high speed.

Immediately following the crash, people gathered in front of the MDP Fuvamulah Office surrounded the police vehicle, broke the glass, and attacked police officers inside the vehicle, Kattelhi reported.

Kattelhi reported that its reporters witnessed some of the officers being admitted to Fuvamulah Hospital.

The paper identified the injured two persons as Ahmed Hassan, 23 and Ali Saeed, 30 both of them Fuvamulah islanders.

According to Kattelhi one man’s head was badly injured and his body bruised, however according to Fuvamulah Hospital no one was seriously injured.

Minivan News understands that the person who received injuries to his head has been brought to Male’ for treatment.

One man suffered bruises and head injuries in the accident

Kattelhi quoted people in the area as saying that the police vehicle was travelling at an unusually high speed and that there was enough space for it in the middle of the road. MDP supporters were on both sides of road attending a meeting.

The paper identified the gang attack victim as 18 year-old Ahmed Juman, who was stabbed in the head but was not seriously injured.

Supporters of government-aligned parties later gathered near Fuvamulah Hospital and Fuvamulah Police Headquarters, claiming that they believed MDP supporters were coming to attack police, according to Kattelhi. The crowd left after police requested them to leave.

Police Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef said the police statement was issued based on the information police have received so far and that the investigation into the case was ongoing.

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High Court issues injunction halting Nexbis project pending outcome of ACC appeal

The High court has issued an injunction temporarily halting the roll out of the Nexbis border control system, pending the outcome of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC’s) appeal against a Civil Court ruling that the ACC did not have the authority to halt the project.

The ACC in a hearing last week had requested an injunction, however Judge Azmirelda Zahir stated that such a decision could only be taken after both sides had presented their cases. The ACC had expressed concern that the project could be completed before the conclusion of the High Court case.

Immigration Controller Ilyas Hussain Ibrahim said he would not comment on the matter and referred Minivan News to Deputy Contoller Ibrahim Ashraf, who was not responding at time of press.

The case was delayed last week after the High Court ruled that Deputy Solicitor General Ahmed Usham could not represent the state in the case, as he had been a member of the tender evaluation board that had awarded the contract to Nexbis.

The case concerns a 20-year Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement with the Malaysia-based mobile security solutions provider to upgrade border security in the Maldives with new technology including facial recognition and fingerprint identification, facilitating the identification and tracking of expatriate workers and eliminating the opportunity for people to enter the country with forged paper documents.

The ACC had earlier ordered a halt to the project following the signing of the contract in October 2010, announcing that it had received “a serious complaint” regarding “technical details” of the bid, and that the agreement presented “instances and opportunities” for corruption.

In December 2011, the Commission forwarded corruption cases against former – and now reappointed –  Controller Ilyas Hussain Ibrahim, and Director General of the Finance Ministry, Saamee Ageel, to the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG), alleging that the pair had abused their authority for undue financial gain in granting the contract to Nexbis.

On February 16 Illyas confirmed that the department would proceed with the border control project as there was no “legal obstruction”. He disputed the claims of corruption and insisted that the project was awarded to Nexbis through a transparent international bidding process.

The agreement stipulates that Nexbis will levy a fee of Rf30 (US$2) from arriving and departing passengers in exchange for installing, maintaining and upgrading its immigration system. The company would also charge a Rf231 (US$15) for every work permit card.

Former Immigration Controller Abdulla Shahid has contended that this would deprive the Maldives of US$200 million in revenue over the life of the 20 year contract. Comparing Nexbis’ earnings to the government’s estimated revenue of US$10 million, Shahid proposed the government instead maximize its income by operating a system given by a donor country: “Border control is not something we are unable to comprehend,” he suggested.

Minivan News reported on February 16 that Nexbis had filed a case in the Civil Court seeking Rf 669 million (US$43 million) in damages from Shahid, alleging that its reputation had been tarnished by negative media coverage.

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