The Islamic Ministry has inspected the construction of new mosques in Haa Dhaalu Nolhivaram, Shaviyani Ihaimagu and some other islands in Shaviyani atoll.
The ministry reports that the construction of a new mosque at Nolhivaram was taking too long and had prompted the inspection, while the mosque at Shaviyani Ihaimagu had been completed.
The team returned from the inspection yesterday.
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(0)The ministry of health and family has announced a 15 year agreement with Apollo Hospital Group to manage Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) in Male’.
The deal was signed on behalf of the government by Health Minister Dr Aminath Jameel and Dr Preetha Reddy, who represented Apollo Hospital Group.
Apollo estimates it will need to spend US$25 million to bring the hospital up to global standards, according to the Economic Times, an Indian newspaper.
A statement released by the ministry claimed the objective of the deal is to improve health services while keeping prices stable.
Apollo Hospital Group was first established in 1983, and is now considered the third largest private healthcare provider in the world. The company currently administrates 8,000 beds and has plans to reach 15,000 beds, reports the Economic Times.
Apollo is expected to make an assessment of the hospital’s needs in the first three months, and plans to offer orthopedics, cardiology, gastro, neurology and acute care and trauma specialities in the first phase of the privatisation deal. The hospital will set up and operate a cardiology unit within the year, the health ministry added.
Chairman of the privatisation committee Mahmood Razee said one of the first changes to be made by Apollo would be to management.
“The major issue was that the management structure [at IGMH] was not working properly, this led to high costs and some services and medicines not being available. The overall qaulity of service went down,” he said.
“Over the next three months there will be structural changes to management changes at IGMH, and an evaluation plan will be submitted as well. Apollo group gives IGMH the advantage of economies of scale, which will lower the overall running costs.”
The hospital’s new management group has also revealed its intentions to make 80% of its employees Maldivian over a 15 year period, although it was unclear as to how this would be achieved given the lack of medical higher education facilities in the country.
Another objective the ministry noted was to ensure that all employees are treated within the correct employment regulations set by the government.
Razee noted that the deal was not part of the government’s public-private partnership scheme.
A doctor working at IGMH said staff were unable to comment on the deal “because we haven’t been officially informed yet. All the information we have received has come through the media.”
(0)Dislikes(0)Three dead bodies have mysteriously washed up on Maldivian shores in under a month, and police still confess they have no idea who they are.
The first body was found in the lagoon of of the Reethi Rah resort on 15 January, floating three to four feet off the shore. A resort worker told Minivan News the badly decomposed body was discovered by a beach cleaner at 8:30 am in morning, and was collected by a police forensic team that arrived at 12:30 pm that afternoon.
Another body was found near the island of Mahibadhoo in north Ari atoll on 21 January. Police said the body, also badly decomposed, was discovered by a fishing boat. Police took the body for investigation.
The third body was found on a sand bank near the Taj Exotica resorts in Male atoll by staff on a diving expedition.
Police inspector Ahmed Shiyam said that because the bodies were so badly decomposed it was proving very difficult to identify who they are.
”It shows that they have been dead for a long time,” he said.
Shiyam said that the bodies found near Reethi Rah and Taj Exotica were male, while the body found near Mahibadhoo could not be identified as either gender. Neither could the nationalities of the bodies be recognised, he said.
DNA had been taken for analysis, he said, and explained that police were now trying to discover whether any of the bodies were of people reported missing from fishing boats.
”None of [the bodies] have yet matched to the family members of the people who have been reported lost,” he said.
The investigation continues.
(0)Dislikes(0)The president has revealed the government will further subsidise electricity bills to cushion people in Male’ from rising energy costs.
Speaking in his weekly radio address, President Mohamed Nasheed acknowledged that many households in Male’ were having difficulty with the new electricity prices.
“Our estimate is that about 3000 households struggle to pay their bills. Therefore, the government has decided to provide them with more support,” he said.
President Nasheed also stated that more people were being made aware about the application process for subsidies.
STELCO, the state electricity company, recently dramatically increased the price for the first 300 units of electricity. In response, a group MPs from the ruling government’s own party came forward to urge the government to do something.
The government has said previously that it will broaden eligibility for subsidies, noting that the current eligibility criteria was based on data collected in 1997.
Under that data, the poverty line is considered Rf 21 (US$1.50) a day. The president said that a new survey was under way.
(0)Dislikes(0)The Maldivian Civil Servant Association (MCSA) said at a rally yesterday that it will file a lawsuit against the finance ministry if civil servants are given the lowered salary this month.
MSCA spokesman Abdulla Mohamed said the organisation was placing five lawyers on standby.
”The finance minister [Ali Hashim] has personal issues against the civil servants, he’s being stubborn,” Abdulla said, adding that the problems were getting worse “because [Hashim] does not have much knowledge on how to handle a government’s finance ministry.”
”Whatever he thinks is right at the moment, he does. He does not plan things well,” Abdulla claimed.
The ministry’s request that the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) and parliament mediate its dispute between the CSC “is not a solution”, he said, insisting that the ministry needed to “follow the law” and pay the full salaries for this month.
Otherwise, he said, the government would be in debt and owe civil servants the rest of the money.
Abdulla further added that the CSC had been careless, and failed to fulfill its responsibility to ensure the deductions applied the independent commissions, judiciary and police as well as other civil servants.
State Finance Minister Ahmed Assad said holding discussions with just the CSC would not lead to a solution, and that the involvement of a third party was needed.
The civil servants would be receiving the lowered salaries this month, he said. “The MCSA has a right to go to court and file a lawsuit if they have problems with the finance ministry.”
In addition, Assad claimed the CSC did not discuss the restoration of civil servants salary with the finance ministry.
”But they did asked us once: ‘is the country still in the state of a economic crisis?’, and we said ‘yes’,” Assad explained.
Governor of the MMA Fazeel Najeeb said the organisation would not outline its involvement in the arbitration process yet, but would speak to the press in several weeks.
(0)Dislikes(0)A fisherman from Seenu Meedhoo who fell into the ocean on 21 January is still missing.
The coast guard’s search effort locate the man has been unsuccessful despite the authority covering 275 square miles by sea and 580 square miles in a Dornier aircraft.
Ahmed Faruhaad fell into the ocean near a fishing site at Seenu Vilingili. The MNDF have urged all vessels travelling the area to keep an eye out for Faruhaad.
(0)Dislikes(0)The Maldivian National Defense Force (MDNF) have begun draining operations after Seenu Hithadhoo became flooded after heavy rain.
More than three quarters of the island was inundated, the MNDF said.
The MNDF also began sandbagging some houses after 30 became flooded last night.
(0)Dislikes(0)A group of men are alleged to have gang raped a woman on Fuvahmulah after dragging her to a beach and restraining her husband.
Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shameen from Fuvahmulah police said the group of men, “we don’t know how many”, stopped the couple on their motorbike last night before taking them to a remote beach on the island.
The men restrained the husband while the women was raped.
Shameen said police had brought in three men for questioning, while a special team from Male’ had been dispatched to investigate the incident.
“There has been huge support from islanders,” he said, adding that “we are waiting for the doctor’s report to confirm the couple’s condition.”
An island resident familiar with the situation reported that six attackers had used ‘face veils’ to hide their identities, and pointed a knife at the husband’s neck to restrain him.
The islander also said the woman had suffered severe trauma and was not allowing anyone to come near her.
Atoll councillor Hassan Saeed “strongly condemned” the attack and said “the public should work together to stop such indicents.
“We must always work to maintain the peace and harmony of Fuvahmulah,” he said.
(0)Dislikes(0)Dear Editor,
Although somewhat disappointed with the misinterpretation of the work being carried out by our research programme, the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme (MWSRP) would like to thank all for expressing their opinions and concerns. We would like to take this opportunity to address some of those here.
Because whale sharks spend so much of their lives far from our range of detecting and observing them, tagging and telemetry is a key tool for learning about the basic biology, movements, and habitat needs of these elusive animals. This information is critical for conserving, protecting and managing whale sharks and the various elements of the marine ecosystems that they travel through and feed and reproduce in. The objective of the project is to obtain and provide this information to the Maldivian government agencies that have authority for managing marine resources and to the Maldivian public, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders who have interests in using and maintaining vital marine ecosystems throughout the Maldives archipelago.
Preliminary results from the tagging program have emphasised the logic and importance of this approach. It has revealed that whale sharks that spend at least parts of their lives in the Maldives are highly mobile, travelling vast distances and sometimes into unprotected waters on the high seas and other states where they can be vulnerable to fishing and fining attempts.
A large part of the MWSRP’s tagging project is to monitor the behaviour of individual sharks before and after being tagged (both of tagged and untagged individuals). If there was any evidence that the tagging program was having either chronic or acute impacts on individual whale sharks or the group of whale sharks that occurs in Maldivian waters we would terminate it. There is no evidence of adverse effects to individual whale sharks or whale shark abundance owing to the tagging activities of the past two years. Indeed observations and systematic data indicate that there have not been any adverse effects.
Whale sharks have been routinely observed again by us, colleagues, tour boat operators, and resort dive operators within minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years after being tagged. Contrary to claims of some, we have not tagged any sharks at South Ari Atoll since May of 2009; in part to avoid the intense and busy tourist activity along Maamigili Reef in December and January.
The tagging is monitored by the government ministries who supply all relevant permits. All information received from the tags is readily shared within this collaboration. It has been and will continue to be frequently distributed to local dive centers, liveaboards, resorts, local islands and peer-reviewed forums.
In consideration of concerns from stakeholders, the MWSRP, in conjunction with the Government, is limiting (2009 -2010) the number of sharks tagged at Maamigili Reef and in the FenMaaDhiguRan Marine Protected Area. The MWSRP is working with colleagues elsewhere in the Maldives archipelago to tag sharks in other areas, and continuing an active outreach and education program with communities throughout the Maldives to inform them about whale sharks generally to objectively respond to questions and perceptions about tags, tagging methods, and findings.
In response to claims that whale shark abundance or encounters have declined in South Ari Atoll and claims that such declines have been caused by the tagging program, we would be interested and eager to review the data on which these claims are based and the methods that have been used to obtain those data. The MWSRP has encountered just over 20% more whale sharks in December 2009-January 2010 compared with December 2008-January 2009, including many sharks (tagged and untagged) observed during the past several years.
There are many possible reasons why whale sharks may aggregate in certain areas – spatially variable plankton blooms and patterns of local persistence of these whale shark prey are clearly important factors and have explained variability in the number, frequency, and location of whale shark sightings in South Ari Atoll and elsewhere
The whale shark research being conducted in ‘peak season’ (December 2009/January 2010) involves simply making photographs of whale sharks and observations of the sex, degree of scarring, and length of each shark (www.mwsrp.org/research).
The MWSRP invites any and all parties with concerns about ‘the methodology used in tagging’ to contact them. The tags and methods being used have been developed and tested to prevent adverse effects to individual whale sharks or their local abundance and have been subjected to public and government rigorous scrutiny in the United States, Australia, the Philippines and in Kenya where our collaborators have worked previously and are continuing studies in collaboration with other parties including the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
We think that active and continued dialogue with all stakeholders is important for the communication of and response to claims and perceptions. Despite existing on very limited resources the MWSRP prides itself on dedicating a large proportion of its time actively engaging and working with local communities in South Ari Atoll and throughout the Maldives. Our ultimate objective is for the MWSRP to become managed and run by Maldivians.
Ongoing initiatives include giving regular presentations in the area about the whale shark research and conservation and conducting school trips to the whale shark aggregation area. Pupil exchanges between local schools and schools in Qatar and the UK have also been arranged for later this year.
The Adopt a shark scheme has been set up as a way of acknowledging donations to the charity. A visitor “adopting” a shark is not purchasing or taking ownership of an animal they are purely making a donation to the charity and in return the donors receive an update whenever their chosen shark is encountered. This is a common mechanism used by wildlife conservation charities worldwide as a way of raising awareness and funding for conservation initiatives for a variety of animals. The money raised using this mechanism is currently being used to set up a pupil exchange programme with schools within the FenMaaDhiguran MPA and schools in Qatar and the UK.
As for the commercialization concerns we would like to emphasise that we are a registered non-profit charity and all MWSRP researchers are unpaid volunteers. The support we gratefully receive from the Conrad Maldives is in-kind and extends to a vessel and accommodation. In return we train and assist local excursion guides in conducting whale shark tours two days a week. This gives us a valuable insight into the experiences of tour operators and guests alike and gives us further opportunity to educate both parties about whale shark encounter best practice.
We hope this list of points goes someway to addressing some of the concerns expressed recently in Minivan news and the Bluepeace blog. We welcome all further questions. Please email [email protected].
Respectfully,
The MWSRP team
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