Former Prisons Division Head with the Department of Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Serivces (DPRS) Isthafa Ibrahim Manik has been detained and questioned by police, after disturbing photographs of tortured victims in custody were obtained by the Presidential Commission and leaked to the media.
Manik remains in custody at Maafushi after the courts granted police a 15-day extension of detention.
The photos released so far include images of men tied to coconut palms, caged, and bloodied. One of the photos, of a prisoner lying on a blood-soaked mattress, has a 2001 date stamp.
A senior government official told Minivan News that the photos were obtained by the Commission from the DPRS itself on Monday, and that those released “are just the tip of the iceberg.”
Inspector of Police Abdulla Nawaz confirmed in a statement to the state broadcaster MNBC that the matter involved severe cases of torture and suspected fatalities, and had been passed to police.
“Former heads of the Prisons Division will be interrogated,” he said. “We will also question former ministers if it is believed that they were involved,” he added, claiming that police would withhold the identities of some of those summoned for questioning.
One of the pictures, reportedly obtained from the DPRS
National Security Advisor and former Defence Minister Ameen Faisal, a member of the Presidential Commission, told MNBC that prison records had revealed that inmates were punished without court order “and subjected to inhumane torture and ill-treatment.”
“This commission has received information that some inmates who were tortured ended up dead,” Faisal said.
Many members of the current government, including President Mohamed Nasheed and Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem, claim to have been tortured under the former administration.
“They were limited only by their imagination,” Naseem said, describing the describing the former government’s treatment of prisoners as “medieval”.
Gayoom’s spokesperson Mohamed Hussein ‘Mundhu’ Shareef told Haveeru that the government’s arrest of the former head of prisons was the “the third part of the drama” in a long-plotted lead up to the arrest of the former president.
“The attempt to arrest President Maumoon will only boost his profile. We see this simply as the government’s attempt to divert the people’s attention from the dollar crisis and rising commodity prices,” Shareef told Haveeru.
The Presidential Commission has previously summoned Gayoom, who refused to appear.
In October 2010, President Nasheed’s high profile support of elderly historian Ahmed Shafeeq, who has alleged that 111 people died in custody under the former administration and that he himself had been arrested and his diaries destroyed, prompted Gayoom to write to the British Prime Minister David Cameron.
In the letter, Gayoom appealed for pressure to be placed on President Mohamed Nasheed following “the escalation of attempts to harass and intimidate me and my family.”
The matter, he told the British PM, involved “unsubstantiated allegations by an elderly man by the name of Ahmed Shafeeq that I had, during my tenure as President, ordered the murder of 111 dissidents.”
“In a book authored by this Shafeeq, which was ceremoniously released [on October 10] by Mohamed Nasheed himself, it is accused that I also ordered the man’s arrest and supposed torture in prison. In a country of just over 300,000, it is safe to assume that even one ‘missing person’ would not go unnoticed, let alone 111.”
Men chained to coconut palms
Nasheed’s government had “escalated its attempts to harass me” in the run up to the local council elections, Gayoom wrote, despite his retirement from politics.
“After the government’s defeat in last year’s parliamentary elections, the popularity ratings of the ruling MDP have fallen further in recent months as a result of the government’s failure to deliver on its campaign promises, and its lack of respect for the law.”
“On the other hand,” Gayoom told the British PM, “I continue to enjoy the strong support, love and affection of the people, and have been voted by the public as ‘Personality of the Year’ in both years since stepping down from the presidency.”
The Foreign Ministry of the Maldives has invited a delegation from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) to the Maldives “to judge [for themselves] whether the local media is able to meet the needs of the public it serves, and of freedom of expression in the Maldives.”
The invitation was given after the IFJ issued a statement supporting the transfer of assets of the Maldives National Broadcast Corporation (MNBC) to parliament’s Maldives Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).
The MNBC is a 100 percent government-owned corporation that controls the assets of the former State Broadcaster Television Maldives (TVM) and Voice of Maldives (VOM).
In April 2010 the then-opposition majority parliament triggered a tug-of-war for control of the state broadcaster after it created MBC, appointed a board, and then ordered MNBC transfer the assets to the new body. Following a refusal to do so by the President’s Office, a Civil Court ruling last week ordered the transfer take place within 20 days. The government has said it intends to appeal.
“The IFJ has consistently argued the case for public service journalism which is independent of state control and insulated from a dependence on advertising revenue which is known to often impair editorial independence,” said IFJ’s Asia-Pacific Director Jacqueline Park.
“The Maldives Journalists’ Association (MJA), an IFJ affiliate, has placed on record its belief that the empowerment of the autonomous corporation [MBC], which has been designated as a public service broadcaster under Maldives’ national law, is key to raising awareness during a challenging time of transition for the Indian Ocean republic.”
The Foreign Ministry claimed that “Unfortunately the current MBC Board was appointed at a time when the opposition majority of the People’s Majlis was being used for obvious political reasons.”
“However, the government looks forward to the day when the MBC can function as an independent, impartial and objective State broadcaster, backed by an independent and well-respected Board.”
The Maldivian media – including MNBC – is frequently accused of overt political bias favouring one or other of the major political parties, a legacy of decades of autocratic governance and a state-controlled media establishment.
Several opposition-allied MPs and businessmen remain key owners of much of the country’s private media, and visiting journalism trainers have voiced concerns from young Maldivian journalists that senior editorial management obstruct them from reporting ethically.
Iraq Editorial Manager for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), Tiare Rath, observed in September 2010 following a series of journalism workshops that “one of the major issues all my students talked about is resistance among newsroom leadership – editors and publishers.”
“Even if the journalists support and understand the principles being taught, they consistently tell me they cannot apply them,” Rath said.
“This is a very, very serious problem that needs to be addressed.”
Inviting the IFJ to the Maldives, the Foreign Ministry said it requested that the IFJ “only uphold the very principles they espouse when they report on the situation on the ground. In this regard, perhaps it would be useful for the IFJ to send a delegation to Male’.”
Minivan News is currently seeking a response from the IFJ to the Foreign Ministry’s invitation.
Finance Minister Ahmed Inaz was approved by parliament in late April 2011, replacing Ali Hashim who was among President Mohamed Nasheed’s cabinet ministers to be ousted by the opposition-majority parliament. He was approved just as the government implemented a managed float of the rufiya, and spoke to Minivan News about the recent and rapid changes to the country’s economy, the challenges it is facing and the future outlook.
JJ Robinson: An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission is in town following the conclusion of the Article IV consultation last year. What is the current status of the government’s involvement with the IMF?
Ahmed Inaz: The IMF is discussing a new three program [with the government]. We are talking about structural adjustments that need to be brought in, and on the revenue side we are agreeing measures we foresee need to take in the next two years. We are trying to agree on the policy side.
They have their suggestions and recommendations and we have the policies the President is proposing, and we are trying to come a common agreement hopefully by the start of next week. I’m hopeful we will re-enter the program.
JJR: The IMF delayed the third tranche of funding in November last year citing “significant policy slippages” on behalf of the government. Did the third tranche get delivered?
AI: The question is not about that, the question is what can be practically done in this country. The new government came in with a new democratic setup, but not the budget to support that. The budget didn’t carry the cost of the new reforms.
It is not a matter of whether we can cut down expenditure – yes there are fat layers in the country, not only in the civil service, also in the judiciary and independent institutions. But the fundamental issue is that because of the democratic transition we have a state with recurrent expenditure higher than its revenue.
To make matters worse, the salaries of the state payroll are higher than our income. You can see where the problem lies.
What we foresee is that there are two ways in which we have to work to rectify this issue.
One is to trim the fat layer, by matching outputs with staff and increasing productivity.
The other thing is by increasing our revenue. We need to move from the current inefficient way of raising revenue – which bases revenue on import duties – to a more direct taxation policy.
We currently have the import duty which is a burden for businessmen, because they are taxed before they sell. We will abolish most duties, apart from those on items that are environmentally damaging, those that affect health, and other discouraged items.
The rest will be abolished and we will move into a direct taxation policy when the business profit tax starts in July. We have also started collecting revenue from a Tourism Goods and Services Tax (TGST), and we propose that we increase this as well as introducing a general GST for the public, and an income tax.
This would not be a payroll tax. It would be an income tax on people earning above Rf 30,000 (US$2300) per month. We think this is more justifiable.
Some may feel that this will collect only a very small amount of revenue – but this not just revenue from employment, but income from business dividends, house sales and so forth.
JJR: The former auditor general reported difficultly getting people to declare assets. Is this difficult with high net-worth individuals in the Maldives?
AI: One thing you have to understand is that this is a path other countries have walked. I remember when I was doing my graduate studies, even then we were talking about this. It was something the educated intellects were advocating. It never happened because there was no political willingness – willingness we now have.
I believe that once we start we will sort the rest of the issues. The TSGT is already being taken from big resorts as well as small guest houses on remote islands – very small businesses. They declare – amazingly, they declare.
I think this is something the country can take, and then we can move to rectify problems and perfect the system.
JJR: The general popularity of the idea seems quite sour with members of the opposition. How do you propose getting this tax through the opposition-majority parliament?
AI: All the businessmen I have met – all the reasonable businessmen I have met – believe that the country has to move to a much more structured, predictable and more coherent system of governance. And to do that we need an economic system that supports social change, and supports the change we have brought politically.
To sustain their businesses it is important that they have social and political stability. It would be a grave mistake if one stands up and says they don’t support [income tax], because that will bring instability to the country and harm businesses.
The other thing is that once you have a system of redistributing wealth through direct tax, such as we are proposing, this is spent on infrastructure, welfare, education, transport – all of these things that directly benefit wealthy businessmen, because they don’t have to pay for it on an individual basis. So the cost of doing business will be lowered.
I believe MPs, businessmen and business-MPs will support this. Those I have met have given their full support – they just want to be consulted first.
JJR: Don’t you think that as a potentially populist issue this may become a victim of the country’s adversarial politics?
AI: I think the opposition is very mature. When we were in the opposition, then the opposition was very mature. I think they will choose the best for the country. We are doing the tough job here – by 2013 the game will be easier. We are laying the foundation for the country, not only by changing the political scenario but bringing huge economic changes. I think they will support it.
JJR: Back to the IMF. A theme in their reports last year – and also those of the World Bank – was that while the Maldives’ income might be increased gradually, the country’s immediate problem was the inflated state budget, leading to a high deficit, while the country was at the same time insisting on a pegged currency. The government’s attempt to introduce cuts last year were scuttled – in your mind what were the reasons for this?
AI: One thing was that the business profit tax was delayed in parliament – for reasons I don’t think I have to elaborate. The TGST we proposed was higher than what are getting now, and that has also had an impact on us.
Also we have to remember that the redundancy of the civil service is not an easy thing – the country’s employment has been totally dependent on the government. It is a very big change, and we have said we want the government to be a policy maker, a regulator, but not doing business, so jobs are created in the private sector.
I’m happy to say our redundancy program – with assistance from the Asia Development Bank (ADB) – has to this date enrolled 800 people and already some of them have already been paid and moved out of the civil service. We hope over the next few weeks we will achieve our target of 1300 – the idea is that they will retrained and not return to the government for at least three years.
JJR: A key criticism of the government’s economic policy from the opposition is its spending on political appointees.
AI: Out of total government expenditure, 75 percent is paying the payroll. The political appointees are three percent of that payroll.
I believe that any appointee, whether political, civil service or judicial – any unproductive appointee – is a burden on our system and we should make them redundant.
JJR: Enmity between the Finance Ministry and the Civil Service Commission (CSC) last year led to the ministry filing charges with police against the CSC, just as the cuts issue entered the court system. What is the relationship like now between the Ministry and the CSC?
AI: We are working very closely with them and they have been very cooperative on the redundancy issue.
JJR: A number of private sector businesses have expressed concern that while the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA)’s decision to enforce the use of the rufiya for all transactions is fine when you have a freely-convertable currency, it presents a serious problem when the banks refuse to sell dollars to them.
AI: The government doesn’t print dollars, and the government doesn’t earn dollars, except for fees and taxes, which is a very small percentage of the total demand for dollars in the country. The dollars are earned primarily by the resorts and fish exporters.
What we want is a system where the foreign exchange system operates as a market. We have introduced a banded float [within 20 percent of the pegged Rf12.85 to the dollar]. What we want is that the dollar earners will sell this to the market, and within the next three months an equilibrium will be achieved.
I don’t mean a low rate – I mean an equilibrium. Once that is set and the speculation and market adjustment has competed, we will have addressed the fundamental reason as to why the black-market existed.
Firstly, because the existing laws and regulations were not enforced, and existing legislation relating to money changers legislation was not being enforced – we cannot have 220 money changers in the country. I have not seen this in other countries. They have to be proper money changers who have invested a certain amount of capital, just like the banks.
I emphasise this but I still don’t get the commitment I need from stakeholders to address it.
Secondly, the monetary regulation states that rufiya is the legal tender for all transactions, with the exception of the government’s collection of taxes and fees. I think we should enforce this irrespective of the sector. We should have rufiya prices – what other country has prices in another country’s currency?
You can still pay in dollars – but this is the exchange rate. For [the customer] it may still seem as though you are paying in dollars, but the transactions are actually happening in rufiya. In Colombo you pay in local currency, even if you use your credit card. We need to have that enforcement irrespective of the sector.
In the medium term we need to address the budget deficit, especially recurrent spending, which has to be matched with income. A state cannot be operated without matching recurrent expenditure to its income – that is madness. A state has to have a prudent economic system – capital expenditure can still be borrowed, because future returns are there.
We working with the ministries to streamline and reduce the deficit in the budget. Next year we are hoping to have a balanced budget.
JJR: The opposition-majority parliament has substantially added to the last two budgets submitted by the government, and the President has been compelled to ratify these. How do you deal with this?
AI: We are trying to work on the legal side as well as the practical, and make sure this is enforced – at least that recurrent expenditure and income is matched, and that any additional bill passed during that particular year is supported with a revenue measure.
They can’t just simply tell us to pass a budget, and then pass bills giving us additional expenditure – every bill comes at a cost. What we propose is that they think about this and rectify it – this is very important.
The third long term goal is increasing productivity and exports, to make sure that whichever government is in power, our manifesto continues and the country can move forward. We need exports to be increased, and earn dollars. Long term, that is the only solution to counter this [economic situation]. In the long run there should be a regulatory framework that supports this.
JJR: Speaking of the regulator, where does the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) fit into this? It was only recently that the government was calling for the resignation of MMA Governor Fazeel Najeeb for failing to help address the situation.
AI: I don’t want to dwell on that. For me the governor – whoever is there – I should work with them. What I want is the regulations to be there. For example, the devaluation of the currency within this 20 percent band – that has to be supported.
Once we make a decision, such as the devaluation, we cannot go back. The fundamental health of the economy told us that we had to do this. The President met with the MMA Board, which advised, and a decision was made. It is not time for us to affect the confidence of the economy – an economy cannot survive without confidence. That is the crucial factor an economy needs – and state institutions need to ensure that confidence is there.
JJR: If the government was convinced that the value of the rufiya was going to fall somewhere within that band, why not float the currency altogether?
AI: The reason what that if we float the currency it would have short-term consequences and immediate jumps. A band means the government will defend that band – that is what we are doing with the weekly auction of dollars to the banks.
Secondly we have numbers from the TGST income that suggest we have been underestimating our economy. By having our policies in place – productivity increasing policies and growing additional exports – we are confident we can pull the value of the rufiya down to 10 in the long term – that is our aim. It is not a joke.
JJR: There is a lot of concern, particularly in resort circles, that the new policy restricting expatriate remittances will reduce the willingness of people to work in the Maldives. What was the logic behind that decision?
AI: We understand that expatriate employees are very important. We will never hurt them and we will ensure that their interests are protected. The regulation that the Ministry and MMA are working on will only limit repatriation of what they earn legally under their contract. If they remit more, obviously they will have been earning illegally.
They are living and spending in the Maldives as well – but they can still repatriate up to what they earn. What we are trying to do is limit illegal workers [remitting dollars out of the country].
JJR: If at the same time you are enforcing use of the rufiya when there is some doubt as to whether you can walk into a bank and exchange that into dollars to remit it overseas – does that not impact confidence in the economy?
AI: We believe the market is currently unstable because of the changes we have brought, and that these changes will take three months for the various variables to work. In that period the government will work with the MMA to ensure that stability exists.
There will be a lot of low confidence and instability, and that will not only be felt by the expatriates. All our imports and consumables, medicine, education – is imported. But we are confident we can get through this.
JJR: Potential foreign investors looking at the economy and observing the recent changes may be unsettled by this instability. How do you address this concern?
AI: The current government is a centre-right government, and we are opening our doors to an unimaginable level for foreign investment.
We will not be treating foreign investors different from local businesses. We will not put in unreasonable controls on the economy, and we will make sure foreign investors are consulted, as with the locals.
We have not done this in the past.because we have been very tightly focused on politics as well as the economy, and haven’t been able to communicate as much in English perhaps as we should have.
I believe [foreign investors] have confidence in our economy, and we will ensure their investments are protected in this country, and that wel continue to have policies to encourage further investment. This country does not have a solid financial sector so we need foreign investors very much. That is understood by the current government, and the policy is to attract foreign investors.
Tourism authorities in the Maldives have withdrawn the country from the New7Wonders campaign, after claiming the private company behind the competition began demanding increasingly high fees in order for the Maldives to compete meaningfully for the remainder of the competition.
The decision was made during Tuesday’s cabinet session after weeks of deliberation between the Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture, the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) and industry stakeholders.
State Minister for Tourism Thoyyib Mohamed announced at a press conference on Wednesday morning that the Maldives was withdrawing from the competition “because of the unexpected demands for large sums of money from the New7Wonders organisers. We no longer feel that continued participation is in the economic interests of the Maldives.”
The Maldives has only invested US$12,000 over the lifespan of the campaign, mostly significantly on banners and voting terminals at Male’ International Airport, Thoyyib said.
Minivan News understands that the company behind New7Wonders, the ‘New Open World Corporation’ (NOWC), initially levied a US$199 participation fee upon signing of the initial contract in early 2009.
However, once the Maldives was announced as a finalist, NOWC began soliciting additional fees and expenses not clearly articulated in the original contract, which tourism authorities estimate will cost the Maldives upwards of half a million dollars.
Requests have so fair included ‘sponsorship fees’ (‘platinum’ at US$350,000, or two ‘gold’ at US$210,000 each), and funding of a ‘World Tour’ event whereby the Maldives would pay for a delegation of people to visit the country, provide hot air balloon rides, press trips, flights, accommodation and communications. According to tourism authorities, these services would amount to a total cost to the country’s economy of over US$500,000.
Minivan News understands that NOWC also attempted to charge telecom provider Dhiraagu US$1 million for the right to participate in the New7Wonders campaign – approximately US$3 for every citizen in the Maldives – a fee that was dropped to half a million when the telco complained about the price.
When tourism authorities expressed concern about the skyrocketing cost of participating in the competition, billed as a global democratic selection of the new seven wonders, NOWC expressed sympathy for the Maldives’ economic situation and instructed it to solicit money from the resort industry.
“We require sponsorship if you are going to benefit from a full World Tour visit,” a company representative said in correspondence obtained by Minivan News. “We believe it is perfectly within the financial means of the leading resorts, when combined, to afford this sponsor fee (especially considering the extraordinary image, economic and marketing benefit it brings to the Maldives and therefore to their businesses).”
The correspondence reveals that should the Maldives be unable to provide the money demanded by NOWC, it would be offered an alternative “protocol visit to your capital city, lasting one day. This visit includes the presentation of a certificate to the appropriate authority and a short press conference. The N7W team arrives in the morning and leaves the same day.”
New7Wonders emphasised however that “during our first campaign (for the man-made wonders) all the seven winners had very strong and exciting World Tour visits.”
In the terms and conditions on the organisation’s website concerning participating candidates, NOWC “ultimately decides whether a nominee, candidate or wonder is able to participate and or retain its status in the New7Wonders campaigns.”
Vague terms such as ‘non-compliance’ “may result in the temporary suspension of the participating nominee, candidate or wonder from that country. Persistent or un-remedied non-compliance may result in the permanent elimination of a nominee, candidate or wonder.”
“Essentially we’re paying a license fee for the right to throw a party, at our own cost, for an unproven return,” a senior tourism official told Minivan News, suggesting that claims a billion people were voting in the competition did not add up, as the Maldives had fluctuated wildly between 19th and 2nd and the tally was not transparent.
Furthermore, “any media that drops its price 50 percent at the first complaint is totally unprofessional, and in a mature media market this is considered highly unusual and poor practice. It means they haven’t justified the original cost,” the source said.
Not alone
The Maldives is not the only country to have been stung by surprise demands for sponsorship cash, not clearly outlined in the contract. NOWC reportedly demanded US$10 million in licensing fees from tourism authorities in Indonesia, which had fielded the Komodo national park as a wonder, and required that it foot an estimated US$35 million bill to host the World Tour event.
In February this year, the Jakarta Post reported the country’s Tourism Minister Jero Wacik as stating that the Ministry had received a letter on December 29, 2010 claiming that NOWC would “suspend” Komodo from the list of finalists if it refused to pay the US$10 million license fee.
“It’s not fair and irrational,” Wacik said. “I refuse to be extorted by anyone, including this NGO. I thought these are about votes, if the world votes for it, then it will win, what does that have to do with hosting the event?”
N7W founder Bernard Weber, "filmmaker, aviator, adventurer".
In response, New7Wonders founder Bernard Weber, a Swiss-born Canadian who describes himself as a “filmmaker, aviator and adventurer”, accused the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism of “reacting with malicious misinformation, invented financial commitments and prejudicial action to cover up for an apparent lack of moral responsibility and duty. In my view, with this behaviour, the Ministry has also reduced the chances for Indonesia to host other major global events that create goodwill in the world, such as the Olympics or the World Cup.”
He then announced that New7Wonders was revoking Indonesia’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism from its status as ‘Official Supporting Committee’ for Komodo, claiming that “last week strengthened the case for us to withdraw from Indonesia completely. If we depended on the Ministry, then today we would be forced to announce a complete pull-out.”
Although the New7Wonders site contains a link ‘United Nations Partnership’, the UN’s World Heritage body UNESCO in 2007 disavowed participation in the first New7Wonders campaign, claiming it was “a private initiative by Bernard Weber” with whom the organisation had decided “not to collaborate”.
“There is no comparison between Mr Weber’s mediatised campaign and the scientific and educational work resulting from the inscription of sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The list of the 7 New Wonders of the World will be the result of a private undertaking, reflecting only the opinions of those with access to the Internet and not the entire world. This initiative cannot, in any significant and sustainable manner, contribute to the preservation of sites elected by this public,” UNESCO stated.
After the world’s sole remaining ancient wonder of the world, the Pyramids of Giza, failed to garner enough votes in Weber’s first New7Wonders campaign, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouq Hosni criticised the project as “absurd” and described its creator as “a man concerned primarily with self-promotion”. The pyramids were subsequently made an ‘honorary’ wonder of the world.
The fate of the money apparently now being paid to NOWC by tourism authorities all over the world is unclear, although New7Wonders claims on its site that funds from the first campaign “have been entirely used to fund the running and campaign costs. The mission is thus to create a surplus during the current New7Wonders of Nature campaign which ends in 2011.”
Funds beyond that, the site states, are used “to set up and run the global New7Wonders voting platform, to run the first campaign that chose the Official New 7 Wonders of the World, to run the current campaign electing the Official New7Wonders of Nature, to run the New7Wonders organisation, [and] to create a surplus for distribution.”
Fifty percent of its surplus net revenues, the site states, are pledged “ to the main New7Wonders Foundation cause: the promotion of Global Memory, specifically the documentation and 3D virtual recording of all New7Wonders.”
Minivan News confirmed that a ‘New7Wonders Foundation’ is registered in the Swiss canton of Zurich as a charitable foundation, however the New7Wonders own website describes it as “a major, global-scale proof of a business concept based on mass virtual online dynamics creating concrete economic positive outcomes in the real world”, and the contract signed with the Maldives gives NOWC’s address as a law firm in the Republic of Panama.
Responding to enquiries from Minivan News, New7Wonders Spokesperson Eamonn Fitzgerald said the Maldives remained in the competition despite the government’s decision.
“We accept the resignation of the Ministry [of Tourism] as Official Supporting Committee (OSC), and we plan in due course to replace them therefore with a new OSC,” he said.
“As we enter the final months of the campaign we clearly see the difference between those who are ready for the unique opportunity of participating in the New7Wonders of Nature — such as the people and workers of the Maldives, who remain strong and active supporters — and those who are not able to step up to the challenge for whatever reason. New7Wonders always listens to the people, the voters, first, and therefore I can confirm to all the fans of the Maldives from all over the world, who are actively campaigning and voting, that they will be able to continue doing so.”
Fitzgerald further denied New7Wonders had requested sponsorship from the Maldivian government.
“We have offered the opportunity for Maldivian companies to come on board as sponsors, in the same way as other global events and campaigns are sponsored,” he claimed.
Asked whether the organisation was a charitable foundation or a commercial enterprise, Fitzgerald claimed it was both.
“At the heart of New7Wonders is the officially Swiss-registered not-for-profit Foundation, the New7Wonders Foundation. As with other Foundations, who cannot themselves by statute operate commercially, New7Wonders has formally transferred the commercial operation to its licensing company, New Open World Corporation, which then runs the commercial aspects.”
Addendum: This story has been updated to include a response from NOWC, received subsequent to publication.
Cathy Waters is the new Chief Executive of Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH), the main hospital in the Maldives. She is one of three foreign medical experts brought out by the UK-based Friends of Maldives NGO and the Maldives High Commission to improve the country’s standard of medical treatment, alongside Medical Director Dr Rob Primhak and Nursing Director Liz Ambler.
JJ Robinson: How did your role at IGMH come about?
Cathy Waters: I’ve been on holiday to the Maldives many times, but it’s been a very different experience living and working here, compared to the sanitised version [of the country] you get at the resorts.
I knew nothing about Friends of Maldives – instead a friend of mine sent me an advert in the Health Services Journal, and said “This is the job for you.” I thought it was interesting, was interviewed in December and found myself out here very quickly, in February.
My background is 28 years working in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), starting as a clinical nurse and working my way up. For the last 15 years I’ve been working in management, and the last eight as Chief Executive of a primary care trust, which commissions health care services.
I’ve had lot of exposure training and working in hospitals, as well as the broader healthcare system. I left the NHS three years ago and worked in a small management consultancy in the UK, which involved going into companies that were facing problems, and working with them to solve those and bring about change.
My last big contract involved working with big local authority in London than needed a transformational change. In reality it meant making significant savings – we had to make 80 people redundant.
JJR: What was your understanding and knowledge of what the position involved before you arrived?
CW: I understood that IGMH is one of five entities that comes under the umbrella of the Male’ Heath services Corporation (MHSC), IGMH being the largest entity, at about 90 percent.
I knew they needed to make significant changes to patient care, and the overall environment for patients. I knew IGMH needed change, which was part of attraction for me as it was somewhere I could utilise all the skills I had to bring about that change.
I also knew it was a hospital that people care passionately about. There’s a real sense that it belongs to the community and that we should be providing high quality services.
One of the things I noticed early on was that staff morale was very low, and people were unsure about what was happening with the organisation and had all sorts of concerns about the future. One of the things I did when I started was observe what going on and try to be very visible as a chief executive, spending time with the doctors and in the labour ward.
A new executive nurse director Liz Ambler is already here, and a Medical Director Dr Rob Primhak will be joining in July, so together we want to be able to demonstrate importance of management staff and clinical teams working closely together. We need to break down some of those barriers and reduce the divide between management and clinical services.
JJR: You arrived three months ago on the tail end of the collapse of the Apollo deal, a 15 year agreement signed in January 2010 with India’s Apollo Hospital Group to manage IGMH. What actually happened?
CW: I did read about Apollo. My understanding was that they wanted to bring about significant change but they wanted significant resources to do that, and that wasn’t an option. One of the things I’m very clear about is that we need to bring about significant change, but within the existing budget. That might involve reviewing everything we do as an organisation.
Unless we can find resources elsewhere we have to work within the budget we’ve got. That’s quite a challenge, because previously there may not have been the same budgetary controls [there are now]. We have to be careful how we utilise our very precious resources.
JJR: What parallels have there been so far with your earlier experience?
CW: Working in an organisation where there are significant financial challenges, and working in an organisation where patient needs are very clearly evident. The population is very vocal about what they want and need – some of that is about manging expectations.
One of the things I know we need address is that people can’t access doctors as quickly as they want. We need to increase outpatient appointments. At the same time there is no system of triage, or prioritisation of the emergency room, which we are now developing.
JJR: It’s true that many people claim the quickest way to get an appointment is to have the mobile number of a friendly doctor.
CW: We have a Maldivian ER consultant in training who is coming back to develop a triage system and ensure those patients who need to be urgently seen are seen straight away, or that those with minor ailments are seen by someone else, or not as quickly.
From what I understand there isn’t a word in Dhivehi that translates into ‘urgent’. We have quite a lot of work to do to make sure patients get to the right place at the right time.
One thing common to people working in the NHS and IGMH is that staff are passionate about what they do. We have to channel that in a positive way. We need to engage staff in decisions rather than it being a top-down management style.
This means helping them to be part of the decision making process, which can be difficult to get your head around. The key groups are patients and staff – happy patients mean staff are pleased they are doing a good job, equally, happy staff are more likely to perform well.
Sometimes it’s very simple stuff – such as saying ‘Thank you, well done.’ I don’t think that’s happened here very often. It doesn’t take a lot to say thank you.
The work that went into planning for mass causalities for the Friday of the recent protests was great. It was a really great example of working as a team and getting everything ready for an influx of casualties.
I recognised the hard work that had gone in so I made sure I came in on the Friday and was part of what was going on, so staff felt supported, and afterwards I wrote a thank you memo. Simple stuff like that makes people feel valued for what they are doing.
IGMH was gifted to the Maldives by the Indian government
JJR: What have been some of the key cultural challenges?
CW: There is a very, very different work ethic to the UK. Some of the things I’ve found very different and very frustrating are about how people manage their time, and motivating people to work. That’s a huge issue.
Getting people to plan ahead and put processes together is challenging. One exciting project is expanding the intensive care unit – I said we need a proper process and justification of the expansion, a proper plan about how we are going to do this. For me there’s a discipline to this, but it’s not always the way things have been done.
Also different and very distinct to IGMH is the lack of use of email – staff still attempt to use memos. I’m trying to encourage the use of email, and encourage people to think ahead and write agendas for meetings.
JJR: On other side of the cultural question, what has been the reaction among staff to a foreigner coming in as a top-level manager?
CW: Inevitably there’s been a degree of suspicion at someone new coming in, at someone from the UK coming in and imposing their views. For me what has been important is how we work with people and lead. I firmly believe that how you lead is important – working with staff, rather than telling them what to do. You do need boundaries and parameters, but people need a sense of direction, and permission to do things themselves.
The other issue is that my contract is for a year with the possibility of extending to two years. Whatever I do, I will feel I’ve failed if I haven’t managed to find someone in IGMH to transfer leadership skills to, and leave a positive legacy. The worst thing would be for me to do would be to go back to the UK and for things to tumble down. That would be an absolute failure on my part.
JJR: How did these obstacles come across? Were there initial difficulties?
CW: People have been very accommodating and very welcoming. I’ve convinced people that they don’t need to stand up when I walk into the room, which was very traditional, and I don’t expect people to call me “ma’am”. People generally been very welcoming. There’s been a few challenges with language barriers, although this has proved less of a problem than I thought it would be. I have very good support in meetings- I might do an overhead presentation, and it is translated into Dhivehi. Unfortunately I’m failing miserably at learn Dhivehi words. Generally people have been helpful and make sure I’m involved in what’s going on.
JJR: What are some of the unique characteristics of the Maldivian hospital-going public?
CW: They are very demanding, and very quick to blame the doctors if things go wrong. Inevitably in a hospital things go wrong, by the very nature of the work we do. And because IGMH is the country’s main hospital, we inevitably get the more complicated and high-risk cases. People are quick to be cutting.
Equally the general public should demand good care, and rightly get that care.
We need to work to enhance communication. One of the things I’ve noticed that is quite different from UK is that different departments still work in silos. We’re trying to break down these silos and get people to work across the organisation.
JJR: There has previously been conflict and misunderstandings between Maldivian doctors and foreign doctors working at the hospital, amid the cultural challenges of having a high turnover of foreign medical staff. Is this something you have observed?
CW: It fascinating that the hospitial talks about ‘Maldivian doctors’ and ‘foreign doctors’ as though they are completely different. Part of the problem I think for the Maldivian doctors who are very dedicated and are here for the duration is that they don’t get some of the benefits expatriate doctors get, such as support with their accommodation. Inevitably that brings some degree of conflict.
Expat doctors are also here for a short time, and I’m making a huge generalisation, but the commitment of some of them may not be as high as that of the Maldivian doctors. Some of that is the sort of contract we have for expatriate doctors, and that needs to be reviewed. Some of the expatriate doctors see IGMH as a staging post to get broader experience and go off to somewhere else, which must be quite annoying for the Maldivian doctors.
We’re trying to move to a position where as much of the workforce as possible is Maldivian, but inevitably that takes time.
JJR: What about the training of local staff, such as nurses?
CW: We have a good relationship with the Faculty of Health, and more Maldivian nurses are coming back into the system. Liz [Ambler] is very keen on in-service training to make sure we are training effectively, and Dr Rob [Primhak]’s background is in education so I’m sure he’ll be keen to ensure high standards of education and training when he starts in July. It’s an area we’re developing.
JJR: How have you found living in Male’?
CW: We’ve settled in well. My husband is semi-retired; he used to be a director of Mental Health Services. He’s made a decision not to work at the moment – he’s a diver and he’s doing his diver master training and really enjoying it.
One of my worries at the hospital is that we haven’t got the facilities to care for patients at the acute stages of mental health problems, and we haven’t necessarily got the right staff.
JJR: What do you think of the relationship the hospital has with the community, and what did the outcry over the widely reported ‘baby decapitation’ incident tell you about that relationship (the head of a deceased newborn had to be surgically removed during labour after its shoulders became stuck during delivery, endangering the mother).
CW: I had only been here a few weeks when that happened. Without going into the details, what surprised me was how quickly quite confidential details about the patient and the case were spreading like wildfire across Male’.
Understandably there was a lot of anger and concern, and fear generated. One of the key learning points for IGMH was how we need to handle that more effectively with the media – we didn’t handle that very well at all. It’s in the hands of lawyers now – it was a tragic and very unfortunate case, and a very emotive situation. From the hospital’s perspective we did all the necessary investigations that we needed to do.
JJR: Does it come back to this recurring mistrust of doctors?
CW: That’s one of the things I’ve picked up on – there is this mistrust. We still have to rebuild that, because we have some fantastic doctors and clinical staff in IGMH, and inevitably when we have high profile cases like that it creates more damage for the medical profession, which bore the brunt of that incident. We need to be more proactive about how we talk about some of the great things that happen in the hospital.
I’m not sure Male’ is ready for it, but I’d like to start a patient involvement group – a number of people from the community who work with us to improve what we do in the hospital. We do that a lot in the UK, but I’m not sure people here would be interested in doing that yet. It does help people understand the challenges we face as an organisation on a daily basis.
The President has appointed an envoy to work with the hospital. He has already brought through some significant changes in terms of the environment. It’s looking much better when people come in, and the outpatient area is now air-conditioned.
We need to focus on what we need to do to implement quality of care and improving access – there are hundreds of things need to do, but have to manage expectations.
One of the things we want to introduce is catering – at the moment patients’ relatives have to bring food in for them. That’s so different to the UK – nutrition is so important to a patient’s recovery. We want to try and introduce a catering service before the end of the year, so patients get a better service.
JJR: What are the hospital’s key strengths and weaknesses at the moment, aside from the shortage of mental health support you mentioned earlier?
CW: One area we do need to improve on is diagnostic capacity, and tools for helping diagnose. We are going to get a mammogram machine, which will have the facility to do biopsies, and we are going to get an MRI scanner which will improve diagnostics.
One of the key problems we have is access to equipment and medical consumables. We’ve put new processes and deals in place which will hopefully improve that, but I didn’t realise until I lived here that absolutely everything has to be imported. We are reliant on things coming in a timely way, and I don’t think that just affects us.
We also have a hospital kindly donated by the Indian government, but inevitably the building itself is in need of renovation. It was fit for purpose then but with the influx of people living in Male’ the need for services is huge. We have 500-600 patients a day, sometimes more, and the building is almost too small now. We have to look at how we take care of it and develop a more modern facility.
One of our big concerns in relation to the operating theatre is lack of anaesthetists. We have to pay a premium for them to come, as there’s international shortage. That’s a real problem for delivering key services.
Those are some of the key areas. We have a good team paediatricians, and a very busy but effective neonatal intensive care unit with 20 cots.
JJR: Is it difficult to attract people to come and live and work in the Maldives?
CW: I think it’s becoming more difficult now because of the dollar situation, and the cost of accommodation in Male’. The MHSC provides accommodation to doctors as part of their package, but nevertheless food prices and living expenses are going up.
A big problem is paying people in rufiya – the expats who come and work in the Maldives want to send part of their salary home but banks are struggling to enable them to send dollars. That seems to be a very major problem at the moment.
The big thing is making sure there is the right commitment from expatriates to stay and make a positive difference. There’s got to be some way of making the working conditions right for the Maldivian doctors as well. They are the life of the organisation, and we are dependent on making sure they don’t move elsewhere.
We are in the process of expanding inpatient facilities, and renovating the old staff quarters into more private facilities. We will have 56 beds finished in late summer, and we have also signed an agreement with the 11 storey building next to IGMH to provide 72 beds. This time next year we will have a significant increase in the number of beds, but that brings its own problems, such as where we are going to get staff. We’re trying to make sure there is joined-up thinking going on.
The Maldives’ five-star resorts have turned the Thilafushi reef into a seven-kilometre long dumpsite, Al Jazeera has reported.
“Environmental activists say the bad practices adopted there are causing contaminants to seep into the Indian Ocean nation’s once pristine sea water, and then into the food chain,” journalist Steve Chao reported.
“If you’re looking to soak up some sun in the Maldives, this isn’t the island you want to be on.”
Now a dumpsite for the country’s 1200 islands, Thilafushi hardly resembles the unspoiled coral reef it was 20 years ago, Chao reports, with little of the waste recycled, composted or treated as required by law.
“Nobody is managing this – the tourism industry is not ethically or morally doing their work,” a Maldivian environmental activist tells the news network, adding that every tourist to the country generates 7.2 kilograms of garbage a day.
“The only treatment the mountains of trash gets is Bangladeshi wokers picking through looking for recyclables goods to sell,” Chao reports. “We learn they are also paid by the government to burn the garbage, sending untold toxins into the air. We’ve been here only a few minutes but already the smoke is stinging the eyes and there’s an acrid taste in the mouth.”
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam claimed the international community had for years promised to build proper facilities to handle the waste, “but the world does not wiit for these proceedures and processes to be completed. I think this needs to be fast tracked.”
“Although the Maldives is one of the top destination for international tourists, the country remains very poor,” Chao noted.
Swedish Ambassador accredited to the Maldives, Lars-Olof Lindgren, has acknowledged that the Maldives’ 2011 graduation to the UN’s definition of a middle income country will affect its ability to seek financial development assistance.
Lindgren, who is based at Sweden’s embassy in New Delhi, observed during a brief meeting with local media yesterday that his own government “has very strict of GDP per-capita criteria and has decided to focus its aid elsewhere on least developed countries, particularly in Africa.”
The Maldives this year became one of only three countries to graduate from the UN’s definition of ‘Least Development’, since the introduction of the term. As a consequence, the Maldives loses access to both concessional credit, certain trade concessions, and some of the foreign aid upon which aspects of the country – such as civil society – have historically depended on for both skills and financial support.
A World Bank Economic Update Report released in November 2010 showed a per capita Gross Net Income (GNI) for the country of US$4090 for 2010, up from US$3690 in 2009.
“In one sense this graduation not been positive in this respect,” Lindgren said. “At the same time, certainly I think we have to look at other aspects of the Maldives – the fact the country taking first steps as a democratic country, steps towards getting the party system to work – that is one reason why the international community should support this – support not only government, but the whole society.”
There was also potential for countries such as Sweden with experience in high-tech renewable technology to work together with the Maldives on tackling climate change, Lindgren added.
Swedish involvement in the Maldives so far had been “not very impressive”, he admitted, “although Swedish companies do have investments in the country in things like logistics and domestic transport.”
“But I think we could do a lot more together on the environment, particularly with regards to renewable energy and energy efficiency. We have a lot of experience high technology, and a long tradition of doing these things with results. For example, we have done a lot to keep our homes warm using insulation – in the Maldives it is a matter of keeping the cold inside. There’s a lot to be gained by doing it efficiently.”
Indian surgeons in Chennai have reconstructed the jaw of an 18-month old Maldivian baby after removing a large bone tumour from his face, in the first operation of its kind to be conducted in India.
India’s Deccan Chronicle newspaper reported that the “grotesque” tumour was removed during six hours of “gruelling” surgery at Chennai’s Balaji Dental and Craniofacial Hospital, during which time Mohemmed Salik’s lower jaw was reconstructed using three of his ribs, a titanium plane and “three sheets of an expensive genetically-engineered protein that promotes bone growth.”
Craniofacial surgeon S M Balaji told the Chronicle that the rare condition usually led to an operation when the child reached 15 years of age, “however this baby needed immediate surgery as the tumour threatened to permanently disfigure his face and block his nostrils and ear canals.”
The baby’s father, a businessman based in Dubai, told the newspaper that the rare and life-threatening bone disease had appeared when Mohemmed was eight months old, and quickly grown into a “hard balloon” that had disfigured his face and made it impossible for the infant to eat or talk.
Surgeons were reportedly apprehensive about the proceedure, especially given the patient’s age and small size of his blood vessels.
Dr Balaji explained that surgeons first removed a large part of Mohemmed’s upper jaw and then his entire diseased lower jaw, without making an external incision.
“We then harvested three ribs from the child and prepared it with Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP), that attracts stem cells to the area and promotes natural bone growth. The rib grafts were then implanted in the child’s mouth along with a titanium plate for support,” Dr Balaji told the Chronicle.
The newspaper added that six months after the operation, which took place in November last year, Mohemmed had a strong healthy jaw and would soon be fitted with an array of artificial milk teeth, most of which he lost in the operation, later to be replaced by a new set of permanent teeth.
The private sector has expressed concern at the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA)’s announcement last week that it it intends to enforce the use of rufiya for all transactions conducted in the country.
The move effectively outlaws dollar transactions in the Maldives, with the intention of funneling foreign currency through the local banking system in a bid to combat the country’s dollar shortage.
President Mohamed Nasheed backed the central bank’s move, and the prohibition of the use of any currency other than rufiya for payments including remuneration for work, services, fees or rent.
The ‘grey’ dollar economy has existed in parallel to the local currency, and has insulated businesses such as resorts from the inflation of the rufiya, pegged at 12.85 to the dollar for almost a decade despite the global economic recession, printing of currency and issuing of T-bills.
“This regulation has existed since 1987,” observed Ahmed Adheeb, a local financial expert working in the private sector, adding that the lack of enforcement had protected the private sector from the country’s monstrous deficit and spend-happy state budget.
The MMA’s announcement came at time when “the convertibility of rufiya [into dollars] is in question because of the deficit, and the pumping of rufiya into the system.”
“Is this the right time to enforce this regulation?” Adheeb asked. “We met with the government and told them clearly that that our industry will face a lot of consequences if this happens.”
Local travel agents were one example of businesses that would be affected, Adheeb said.
“They [earn dollars] and contribute a large inflow of dollars into the economy. If they have to pay resorts in rufiya, they will lose their competitive advantage.”
The enforcement would take “the openness and flexibility of out of the economy, when the real issue lies with the state budget,” he said. “This will make business so difficult – it is very dangerous to the economy for the government to start sorting out industry before the state budget. And what of the practicality of it?
“The government needs to address the deficit and cut down its expenditure. State income will increase gradually, but if we keep spending like this we are headed for disaster.”
Minivan News spoke to the manager of one import business, who relies on resort customers paying in dollars to be able to buy stock from overseas.
The MMA’s decision, he claimed, was “absolutely absurd.”
“They can do what they like – but does this mean resorts must pay in rufiya? At a time when there’s no currency stability? Will resorts have to post rufiya prices in tourist brochures? If the objective is to drive foreign investment out of the Maldives with a raft of new taxes and a confused and bizarre monetary policy, then they’re being quite successful,” he said.
Another manager of a commodity import business Minivan News spoke to bluntly stated that she would be unable to comply with the regulation “because we trade in dollars.”
She added that her business, which banks locally and was sorely hit by the dollar shortage and the reluctance of banks to convert local currency, had improved following the government’s decision implement a managed float of the rufiya.
“We found resorts were more willing to pay in dollars once we set our rate at Rf15.42,” she explained. “But unless the banks are going to exchange rufiya to dollars consistently and at a sensible rate, this is going to cause absolute uproar. And how on earth are they going to police things like payment of rent?”
Economic Development Minister Mahmoud Razee told Minivan News that the government was “trying to make sure that foreign currency goes through the banking system, by enforcing the legal tender.”
“The reason we are doing this is so importers can go to the bank and request dollars from the banking system,” he said. “This will not stop people having a dollar account, it will just stop transactions not in the legal tender.”
Every restaurant at tourist resorts would be obliged to change its menu to rufiya prices, he acknowledged, “but almost every resort and hotel already has a money changer.”
“The MMA will be able to take action if there is a transaction that does not take place in legal tender, and take [the parties] to court,” he said.
The MMA’s announcement came days after the government announced exchange control regulation on the salary of expatriates, legally limiting their ability to transfer money outside the country.
“We don’t want a lot of illegal workers sending foreign currency out of the country, working on the side and taking jobs from locals,” Razee said, explaining that expatriate workers would be obliged to prove they were working in the country legally at the point of transfer, and be restricted in the amount they could send overseas.
“The Ministry of Finance will set a percentage, say 90 percent, of the salary that can be remitted,” he said.
Adheeb was critical of the decision, suggesting that the government had chosen a critical time to impose exchange control.
“We have said it is not going to work as we have a small population and we need foreigners to work here,” he said. “[Issues concerning] non-skilled labour are a problem of regulation, but importing skilled labour gives us a competitive advantage at a time when there are issues converting the rufiya,” he said.
“I question the practicality off this – the banks are currently struggling to deliver services to their existing customers. How will they know if an expat is an illegal expat? This will just create a blackmarket for illegal banking transactions.”
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