Month: May 2012

Iranian Ambassador Nabi Hassani-Pour meets President Waheed

President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan has met with the Iranian Ambassador of Iran accredited to the Maldives, Mohammed Nabi Hassani-Pour.

At a meeting at the President’s Office in Male’ yesterday, Dr Waheed discussed the current state of bilateral relations with Iran, as well as means to further strengthen cooperation with the Maldives.

The ambassador was also thanked for the ongoing support provided by Iran in relation to the country’s “economic situation”, according to the President’s Office website.

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Two drunk Maldivians arrested in Colombo for harassment during Sri Lankan Airlines flight

Two Maldivians were arrested at Colombo Airport after they boarded a Sri Lankan Airlines flight drunk and violently harassed passengers and cabin crew during the flight, reports Sri Lanka’s ‘Daily Mirror’ newspaper.

Sri Lankan police told the paper that the two Maldivians were under the influence of liquor and were apprehended by the Katunayake police for behaving in an unruly manner.

“The two suspects acted violently, harassing the passengers and crew following the flight’s departure from Bangkok late last night,” the paper reported. “Soon after the landing at the Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake, the two suspects were taken into police custody and they were to be produced before the Magistrate shortly.”

Maldivian newspaper ‘Haveeru’ has also reported the same incident and identified the pair as Hanif Mushaf and Washeed Ibrahim.

Haveeru quoted a senior Sri Lankan police officer as saying that the two Maldivian nationals tried to manhandle the cabin crew and passengers.

The cabin crew reportedly warned the two Maldivians to calm down, the paper reported.

Maldives Police Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef told Minivan News that he had heard about the incident through the media but could not yet confirm the arrest.

First Secretary at the Maldivian Embassy in Srilanka Ahmed Mujthaba was not responding to calls at the time of going to press.

The Sri Lankan Airlines office in Male’ was closed for the public holiday.

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“Mayday Mayday! We have a coup!”: MDP marks May Day

Thousands rallied in Malé on Tuesday campaigning for equal treatment of workers and protesting against the alleged “coup d’état” of February 7 in a rally held to mark International Worker’s Day, ‘May Day’.

The rally, organised by the ousted Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and led by former President Mohamed Nasheed, set out from Usfasgandu on the southern ring road of Malé with campaigners waving red and yellow ribbons, balloons, pom poms and drumming on makeshift instruments. Trucks blaring loud music accompanied the rally.

Nasheed resigned following a police and military mutiny on February 7, but later said his resignation was under duress and that he was deposed in a coup d’état. The MDP has held frequent marches calling for early elections and continues to hold nightly meetings at its protest camp area, Usfasgandu, located behind Dharubaaruge.

MDP Youth Wing President Aminath Shauna said the MDP had always worked for labor rights and that although the Maldives had joined the ILO in 2009, she was concerned that the Maldives continued to abstain from important ILO conventions such as those regarding collective bargaining, minimum wage, forced labour and child labour.

Mickail Naseem, 18, said he was at the rally to protest unfair promotions to police and financial benefits to the military at a time of financial crisis. In March, over a third of the police force received promotions while the military received two years of suspended allowances in a lump sum in April.

“Where is the equality? Certain police officers and military have received pay hikes, promotions and flats for housing. But the government has said the Maldives is bankrupt. This also increases pay differences between ordinary civil servants and the security forces,” Mickail said.

Another MDP supporter, Ahmed Yasmin, 30, held up a placard with the words “S.O.S. Mayday! Mayday! We have a coup!”. He had attended the rally “to have fun with my friends since it’s a public holiday.”

The colorful, noisy and peaceful demonstration stalled near former presidential residence Muleeage after police and military in riot gear blocked roads leading to the Republican Square, the President’s Office and Police and military headquarters.

A few hundred campaigners sat down in front of the police lines and were still there as of 7:30pm, but most of the rally participants dispersed. Verbal confrontations took place between MDP supporters and police. Minivan News overhead one police officer from behind a barricade tell a young girl that she was “very pretty” and that he would “like to have sex with her”, which was met with a torrent of abuse.

As of 7:30 pm, the sit in led by President Nasheed continued in front of Muleeage.

The MDP also plans to organise a rally to mark International Press Freedom Day on May 3.

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Maldives celebrates workers rights on Labour Day

The Maldives today celebrates Labour Day, the second time the country has observed the public holiday after it was instituted in 2011 by former President Mohamed Nasheed to promote and protect the rights of workers.

May 1 is celebrated in other countries as International Workers Day, or May Day. The date is celebrated throughout the world and is a national holiday in over 80 countries, during which the rights of workers are promoted through demonstrations and marches.

The day will involve demonstrations by a combination of labour organisations in the Maldives capital, Male’.

Vice President of the Tourism Employment Association of Maldives (TEAM) Mauroof Zakir said that an event was been held this morning between 7:30am and 11:00am at which information was given about the employment act and workers rights in the country.

As well as TEAM, the gathering was also attended by representatives from Solidarity Workers USA and the Asian Migrant Workers Forum as well as members of the Human Rights Commissions of the Maldives, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

He also said that another demonstration would be held this afternoon, beginning at 4:00pm at the social centre on Majeedhee Magu from where the group intends to march to the Tsunami monument area at Lonuziyaaraiy Kolhu. This march has taken place  on May Day for the past two years and Zakir expects between 300 and 500 people to attend.

Zakir described the main concerns within the Maldivian labour movement as being “employment protection, lack of permanent employment, and a rapidly increasing trend of ‘casualisation’. The outsourcing of jobs is also a huge problem.”

“Salaries are being delayed or not paid. This is mostly in the construction industry, but also in the resorts. Workers wages are too low for the standard of living in the Maldives,” said Zakir.

The workers of the state-owned Maldives International Fisheries Company Ltd (MIFCO) are today demonstrating for increased wages amongst other things, reports Haveeru. The local workers had delivered a petition of demands to the company with a deadline of April 25 to which no reply was received.

Amongst the reported demands in the petition, signed by 260 of 354 Maldivian workers at MIFCO’s  factory on Felivaru, were calls for wage rises of 35-40 percent, better food and accommodation and equal treatment of all employees.

May Day was traditionally celebrated as a spring festival in the Northern Hemisphere before the day was chosen in 1886 by North American Labour movements to agitate for improved workers rights, with an eight-hour working day the primary focus.

In 1889, the nascent international socialist movement called for a general strike on May 1 as an annual demonstration of labour solidarity. The day was soon recognised throughout Europe as a public holiday but, keen to distance itself from what was viewed as a holiday, the United States chose to celebrate its ‘Labor Day’ in September.

The first South Asian nation to celebrate the tradition was India in 1923 and it is now a national a public holiday. The day is also referred to in India as Maharashtra Day after the day in which the western region attained statehood. On May 1 Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan will all mark the day with demonstrations of workers solidarity.

Bangladesh’s Ministry of Labour and Employment organised a rally in Dhaka this morning, reports local online paper bdnews24.com. The Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has inaugurated a two day long fair in the capital Dhaka to celebrate the occasion.

Large rallies are planned in Sri Lanka today in celebration of the occasion, prompting the deployment of over 10,000 policemen to handle security and control traffic.

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GMR deducts US$8.1 million from concession fees for 2012 first quarter

Indian infrastructure giant GMR, appointed by former President Mohamed Nasheed’s administration to manage and develop of the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA), has deducted US$8.1 million from concession fees paid to the government for the first quarter of 2012.

GMR took over the management of INIA from the government-owned company Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) in September 2010. According to a statement from the MACL, the company only received US$525,355 out of an expected US$8.7 million in concession fees for the first quarter of 2012, after GMR deducted payment for airport development fees and insurance surcharge.

The Airport Development Charge (ADC) was intended to be a US$25 fee charged to outgoing passengers from January this year, as stipulated in the contract signed with GMR in 2010. The anticipated US$25 million the charge would raise was to go towards the cost of renovating INIA’s infrastructure.

However the then-opposition Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP), which had ardently opposed the handing of the airport to GMR, won a case in the Civil Court last year blocking GMR from charging the ADC.

The Civil Court blocked the fee on the grounds that it was essentially the same as a pre-existing Airport Services Charge (ASC), and that any new fees would constitute a new tax and was subsequently required to go through the People’s Majlis.

Following the court ruling former President Nasheed’s administration agreed that the ADC would have to be deducted from GMR’s concession fee paid to the MACL.

Managing Director of MACL Mohamed Ibrahim told Minivan News the company would not comment on the matter.

GMR paid MACL US$ 7.79 million in variable annual concession and fuel concession fees for the fourth quarter of 2011, after deducting US$ 100,000 as payment for insurance surcharge.

New Finance Minister Abdulla Jihad has previously said the ADC issue will bankrupt the MACL.

“I don’t believe that GMR can deduct that amount from the payment owed to the government. The estimated US$30 million for this year must be paid. If the payment is not received it would be difficult to run the Airports Company,” Jihad said.

“The Civil Court ruled against that charge. Hence that amount must not be deducted from the payment to the government which would reduce its income,” Jihad argued. ”The Airports Company might face losses if that happens,” he said.

Meanwhile, new Foreign Minister Dr Abdul Samad Abdulla assured his Indian counterpart that all existing investment agreements would be honoured despite the change of government on February 7.

According to Indian newspaper The Hindu, Samad assured Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna that the government’s policy was unchanged, after his counterpart expressed the desire that the Maldives remained friendly to outside investors.

Longstanding opposition

The contentious Civil Court case was filed by DQP in a longstanding campaign against Nasheed’s government awarding the airport redevelopment to GMR. DQP leader Dr Hassan Saeed is now President Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s special advisor, while DQP Vice-President Dr Mohamed Jameel is the new Home Minister.

A 24-page book released by the DQP while it was in opposition presents the government’s lease of Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) to developer GMR as a threat to local industry that will “enslave the nation and its economy”.

Former President’s Office Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair at the time of the pamphlet’s publication said that he felt the title’s wording was “very strong”, and drew a faulty comparison between international cooperation for mutual benefit and foreign occupation of a people and market for selfish purposes.

“The purpose of all this is to make Maldivians mistakenly feel like they are under occupation and the country is being sold out,” said Zuhair, who pointed out that the government “wouldn’t have gone out for an international bid [on the airport project] if there was a way to borrow money and do it internally.”

He explained that the airport now yields “a bulk” of the national revenue, in dollars: “If foreign visitors increase, income increases. It’s simple math.”

GMR has also drawn the ire of local company MVK Maldives Pvt Ltd after INIA, backed by a civil court ruling, refused to renew MVK’s lease and ordered the MVK to vacate the Alpha MVKB Duty Free shop and hand the premises to GMR.

Consequently, DQP MP Riyaz Rasheed submitted a resolution to the Majlis to prevent GMR from taking over the management of duty free shops and bonded warehouses from local businesses. However, Rasheed withdrew the resolution on April 2.

The decision to finalise a deal to develop Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) was agreed under the administration of former President Mohamed Nasheed in 2010. GMR emerged victorious in the bidding process, amid political opposition on largely nationalistic grounds.

Confidence in GMR’s $511 million dollar INIA project appeared to take a hit after the resignation of President Nasheed in February was accompanied by a five percent drop in GMR’s share prices before bouncing back shortly after.

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