Day: November 15, 2009

The health ministry has announced that fifteen posts in the health services in the atolls will be dissolved next year, resulting in the dismissal of over 600 employees.

The ministry said on Thursday that the posts were not included in the restructured framework of the health services in the atolls.

“However, before the posts are abolished and the employees are let go, the ministry has decided to transfer those who meet the criteria and wish to transfer to vacant posts in the ministry or the ministry’s sector,” it reads.

The fifteen posts that will be abolished are assistant manager, public health programme coordinator, regional health administrator, physiotherapy assistant, dental assistant, purchasing officer, assistant foreman, laboratory assistant, midwife, cook or cook’s assistant, electrician, assistant electrician, health auxiliary, watcher and ambulance attendant.

Since the number of posts will be lower when the health service centres are ranked and restructured, the ministry said, it has decided to dismiss more employees.

Further, it continues, employees in the posts that will not exist under the new structure from 1 January who wish to resign can do so.

It adds that health service employees who resign will be eligible for allowances and benefits as specified by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) in a circular on 4 May.

Mohamed Fahmy Hassan, spokesperson of the CSC, told Minivan News today the commission was in discussions with the health ministry about the proposed changes to the structure.

Last month, the government announced plans to reorder the ranks of the civil service to increase the number of technical staff.

President Mohamed Nasheed said at the time that the changes were needed to government administration to ensure efficient delivery of services.

At the time,Ahmed Assad, state minister of finance, said almost 40 per cent of employees at a typical government office were support staff.

“[These are] not the employees needed to provide the services of that office,” he said. “Therefore, to carry out the work entrusted to us by the people, we need to reorder how the employees are ordered now.”
The president took the example of a health centre in an island.

“What usually happens is there’s no doctor. There might be a nurse. But there are 20, 25 or 30 employees at the place. A lot of cleaning staff and various administrative support [staff],” he said.

“What’s actually happening is that the people who are supposed to provide the service or do the work are not there. But there are people to support the people who are not there.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Dear Editor,
Before we talk of alcohol license, we have to talk about why city hotels and guest houses are on inhabited islands.
The idea of guest houses and city hotels on inhabited islands was originally to spread the economic benefits of tourism into local islands and to promote the heritage and culture of Maldivian life to tourists, who rarely see the light of day on an inhabited Maldivian island. This is outlined in brief in the previous tourism masterplans.
Yes ofcourse there are numerous benefits from tourists coming onto populated islands, look at the northern strip of Chandhanee Magu, full of tourist shops and series of restaurants that benefit from catering to tourists. This is a fine working model, but unfortunately one that extorts money from tourists and destroys our culture – fake souvenirs manufactured in the East are sold as genuine Maldivian products, restaurants maintain two sets of menus – one for locals and another overpriced menu for guests, tour guides work also as salesmen for tourist shops! This is a massive extortion scheme. To this date, government has not addressed this issue (Maumoons nor Anni’s government) to the extent it should.
The same sort of markets will bear fruit once fully-fledged city hotels with liquor licenses start operating on other islands, tourists arrivals would create such unregulated markets specially if there’s no authority monitoring and keeping things in check. Guests will be unfairly exploited and worse yet, liquor being made available will most certainly be shipped behind doors into the local community.
Liquor and drugs are already readily available in Male’ and elsewhere. The same illegal distribution networks and those in charge will exploit this opportunity and make a quick buck!
I personally feel, the policy to have city hotels and guest houses should be gotten rid of entirely. A city hotel or guest house for local domestic tourism is fine, but not for tourists coming from abroad.
The tourism model that has worked so far, where tourists stay in a separate island is good as it is and we should not try to meddle with it but to develop it further keeping the core concept of one island one resort intact.
Regards,
Anonymous

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Revised regulations on the use and import of liquor, pork and pork products have been sent to a parliamentary committee to seek its advice, Economic Development Minister Mohamed Rasheed said today.

Following pressure from the public, NGOs and the Islamic ministry, the regulations that were to come into effect today and authorise the sale of alcohol at tourist hotels on inhabited islands were withdrawn by the ministry last week.

At a press conference today, Rasheed said he did not believe alcohol should be sold in an Islamic country, but liquor permits were given to expatriates and diplomats as required by the Vienna Convention.

“When I took over this ministry, I was not at all happy with the way our ministry was doing it,” he said. “So we started revising it. When we started revising it, the attorney general’s office, police, customs and the tourism ministry participated. The most important thing we considered in revising it was how common this had become in the country, especially in Male’.”

Under the existing regulations, he added, 826 liquor permits were issued to expatriates, which led to difficulties in controlling its illegal use.

“We plotted [a graph] to see the [distribution of] liquor permits in Male’,” he said. “When we looked, we saw that the whole of Male’ was red.”

He did not support such a “loose” policy without a monitoring mechanism, said Rasheed, and in the revision process, the ministry received complaints from police that it was difficult to control the illegal sale of alcohol and the black market created due to the permits.

Further, the ministry was told by Maldives Customs that liquor was taken from bonded warehouses without any control.

“So we were studying ways to control it. But in controlling it, we have to consider that our economy is based on the tourism sector and how we could control it in a way that does not weaken the tourism industry,” he said.

Following the publication of the revised regulations on the ministry’s website on 9 November, he added, the ministry received a number of comments and complaints.

Since the issue was tied to the public interest, he said, the ministry sent the regulations for advice from the parliamentary rules committee.

“If the people don’t want it, I won’t include [sale of alcohol in inhabited islands],” he said.

Yesterday, the main opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party announced that it would hold “a large demonstration” on Tuesday night to protest the decision sell alcohol.

Further, the Tourism Employees Association of Maldives (TEAM) said it would join a number of NGOs in a nationwide protest if the regulations were implemented.
Mauroof Zakir, vice-president of TEAM, told Minivan News yesterday that although he supported the decision to revoke liquor permits, he believed alcohol should not be sold at all on inhabited islands.

“I think that is a very good idea if they take the licenses from them because many have prepared their own bars and have a black market so that will help a lot,” he said.

Adhil Saleem, state minister of economic development, said today that alcohol had become common in Male’ as a result of the existing regulations.

“We made the regulations to change the situation. Let’s talk about the situation,” he said. “We are trying to find a solution because alcohol has become common in an Islamic society, gang violence has increased and our children are intoxicated.”
The issue of selling alcohol on inhabited islands came to public attention last month when Adhil Saleem confirmed that the new Holiday Inn in the capital Male’ had applied for a liquor licence.
The law obligates the ministry to make regulations for the import and use of alcohol, he said.

Adhil said the revised regulations were complete and did not have any loopholes. Hotels with over 100 beds would be allowed to have a bar that is not visible from outside and would only serve foreigners.

Further, it will be illegal to keep alcohol in mini-bars at the hotels on inhabited islands or sell it anywhere apart from the hotel’s main bar.

Maldivians cannot be employed at the bar and all employees of the bar must be registered with the economic development ministry after a police clearance; the bar must further not be easily accessible to people who enter the hotel or visible from outside.

An inventory of the alcohol in storage and daily sales must be maintained and made available to police on their request, while CCTV cameras must be mounted at the storage room at hotel.

Rasheed said police told the ministry the new regulations would make it easier for police to target the illegal sale of alcohol in Male’.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

350.org has posted an online petition on its site to support President Mohamed Nasheed’s survival pact, announced at the Vulnerable Climate Forum, last week.

At a congregation of 11 of the world’s most climate vulnerable countries, the president invited participants to choose survival over suicide and commit to drastic cuts in emission at the landmark UN climate change conference in Copenhagen this December.

“At the moment every country arrives at the negotiations seeking to keep their own emissions as high as possible. They never make commitments, unless someone else does first.

“This is the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collection suicide. We don’t want a global suicide pact…So today, I invite some of the most vulnerable nations in the world, to join a global survival pact instead.”

In an email to Minivan News today, Bill McKibben, the man behind the 350 campaign, which is calling for reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350ppm, said they had received tens of thousands of signatures in support of the pact.

On the speech, McKibben said, “I thought it was the best speech by a head of state about climate change in the 20 years I’ve been working on the issue. Finally someone dropped the language of political convenience and replaced it with the language of scientific necessity.”

Over on Nasheed’s Facebook page, readers have praised his speech.

“Thank you President Nasheed for having the courage to tell it like it is,” said Laura Lamond, while Susan Blayney from Canada said the speech moved her to write to her MP.

Bruce William Oswell Haynes wrote that the speech was the “most powerful use of the spoken word I have heard for a long time.”

On the V-11 summit, McKibben said it showed that most vulnerable nations would “not go quietly to the gallows”.

“It set them up to be the moral leaders at Copenhagen and beyond. Far more than the big global environmental groups, these nations now represent the cutting edge of the debate.”

Although the climate change talks are less than a month away, negotiations have virtually reached a standstill.

At the last round of negotiations in Barcelona, Spain, earlier this month, the divide between rich and poor countries remained more pronounced than ever.

While the developing world are demanding broad cuts in emissions from the developed world, the latter are reluctant to commit. Another issue of contention is how much aid rich countries should given poorer ones to help them adapt to climate change.

In the declaration signed at the V-11, participants agreed to show moral leadership and begin the process of greening their economies but stopped short of committing to going carbon neutral.

In March, Nasheed announced his intention to make the Maldives the first carbon-neutral country in the world and at the summit, called on other countries to join him.

Other countries at the summit included Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Kiribati, Barbados, Bhutan, Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya.

Although they are among the lowest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, they share between them the worst impacts of climate change including desertification, drought, floods, storm surges and vulnerability to sea level rise.

The declaration further called for cuts in emissions that would ensure global temperatures remained below 2.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels and that atmospheric carbon dioxide was returned to the safe threshold of 350 ppm.

On 24 October, 350.org led a world-wide protest for this reduction in carbon dioxide levels. People in 181 countries participated by holding over 5,200 events.

McKibben told Minivan News the campaign would now help organise a series of candlelight vigils around the world on 12 December, especially targeted at US embassies and consulates.

“It has become clear that even in the age of Obama, the United States still represents the fundamental roadblock to change,” he said.

To sign the Survival Pact click here.

{http://action.350.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1711}

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)