About a 100 foreign employees of Vimla Construction protested outside the company’s offices yesterday over non-payment of wages and food allowances, Haveeru reports.
The employees claimed they have not been paid last month’s wages or overtime allowances for a year.
An official from Vimla said the workers were demanding that the company arrange for them to leave for holidays in groups. He said about six employees were being sent back every week, but it would be difficult to send more at a time.
He denied the workers had not been paid, adding their food was provided by hotels.
German Ambassador to the Maldives Jens Uwe Plötner has presented his letter of credentials to President Mohamed Nasheed.
Following the ceremony yesterday, Plötner and Nasheed discussed ways of strengthening the relationship between the two countries, particularly in the area of eco-tourism. Germany is popularly considered to be one of Europe’s leaders on environmental issues.
Plötner said Germany admired Nasheed’s “courageous policies” and pledged his country’s assistance.
Mohamed Riyaz, MDP MP of Gaaf Dhaal Dhaandhoo has asked the People’s Majlis administration to reduce his salary by 20 per cent, reports Miadhu.
A special parliamentary committee is currently discussing the possibility of reducing the salary of Majlis members, but a consensus has not been forthcoming. Independent MP Mohamed Nasheed initially proposed reducing MP’s salaries and allowances from Mrf 62,000 a month to Mrf 37,000, but his bill was rejected.
Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed has requested members take a 20 per cent pay cut in the wake of reductions across the civil service.
Ibrahim Hussein Zaki, special envoy to the president, has renewed allegations that former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has US$80 million hidden in foreign bank accounts, including US$40 million in tsunami aid from the Emir of Qatar.
The last time the allegation was made, by Hassan Afeef, a former MP and now political advisor to the president, Gayoom successfully sued for defamation and Afeef was fined US$350.
Zaki insisted he “was only quoting what was said in newspapers in the UK in an interview with the Global Protection Committee (GPC),” describing it only as “an international NGO.”
The GPC’s leader, Michael Lord-Castle, told Minivan News during an interview in November 2006 “that we have been advised that between US$60-80 million has been transferred from Maldives’ governmental funds directly to various private bank accounts in favour of President Gayoom. Some of those funds we understand derive from donations made in respect to the tsunami disaster.”
When Minivan News asked ‘Commander’ Lord-Castle to disclose the countries and banks the money had been transferred to, he replied that “investigations are continuing and at this stage it is necessary to withhold certain information.”
Members of the controversial GPC, of which little record exists for an organisation “first formed in 1943 towards the end of the Second World War” and boasting “over 2,400 members ranging from ex-presidents, prime ministers and ministers of different countries”, travelled to the Maldives to observe the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s planned assembly for constitutional change on 10 November 2006.
Lord-Castle said the group had been commissioned to produce a report to the European Parliament on the political situation in Maldives, a claim denied by the European Parliament. He was deported from the Maldives together with four associates.
The GPC’s website has since disappeared from the web, while Lord-Castle’s current wikipedia entry describes him as a ‘well-known English businessman’ with varied involvement in an insolvency advisory service, a failed business-class airline, a vigilante ambulance service, and the supplier of a cleaning chemical called Vizexon promising to “kill all pathogens, including swine flu, H5N1, bird flu, SARS, influenza virus and HIV.”
Zaki said that he did not believe the accusation was defamatory “and if Gayoom feels he is getting defamed then he should file a suit against the GPC.”
“If [the accusation] proves true it will be fairly significant because first of all it was money from the National Treasury, secondly the money was for tsunami victims, and thirdly there would be reason to anticipate more [hidden money],” he said.
World Bank enlisted
Zaki pictured with members of the GPC in November 2006
Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed announced in September he was seeking the help of the World Bank’s Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR) to recover a suspected US$2 billion in embezzled funds, stating that the money was needed to plug a budget deficit of 34 per cent of GDP.
“Many people have been in one way or another connected to this huge web of corruption,” Nasheed said, adding that international help was needed because of a lack of forensic accountancy skills in the country.
Gayoom’s assistant and former chief government spokesperson Mohamed Hussain Shareef (Mundhu) responded to the allegations by demanding Zaki “show us the evidence. If you have the details make them public, instead of repeating allegations. Maumoon has said, ‘go ahead and take a look, and if you find anything make it public.'”
“There is no evidence to link Gayoom to corruption,” he insisted. “What Afeef said was very slanderous. We threw the book at him, and showed in court that he had no evidence to back up his claim at all, not a single piece of evidence.”
He described the renewal of the allegations as “immature, especially dragging the Qatari government into this. We called them and they were as surprised as us – senior officals in their government had no clue about [the alleged theft of US$40 million in tsunami aid]. Anyone of intelligence knows that aid money is not passed across a table by leaders. Gayoom could obviously not just take off with donor or tsunami aid.”
Mundhu expressed confidence that the World Bank’s investigation “would find nothing untoward. I know for a fact that our tsunami aid accounting mechanism was far superior to that of many other countries. All the aid money went through one oversight body headed by the then UN representative and the auditor general.”
The source of the allegations, the GPC, were one of many “voodoo NGOs” around at the time, he said. “We tried to find out what they were about, and basically drew a blank. Nobody in the UK knew anything about them.”
The allegations were intended “to wipe Gayoom off the political map,” Mundhu claimed. “The MDP is a minority government. Nasheed himself as an individual has no more than 25 per cent support in the country. Gayoom is the most popular individual with 45 per cent and over 100,000 die-hard supporters – clearly people thought he did a good job. Nasheed could not beat him one-to-one, and that reality is very hard [for the MDP] to stomach.”
The accusations of embezzlement, he suggested, were the activities of “certain unpleasant elements in the MDP. I don’t branch Nasheed in this, but [the party] was so intent on bringing in people with grievances towards the [former] government that they brought in unsavoury elements that now even Nasheed cannot control.”
Police have said their investigation into the alleged 17-year-old concubine revealed that rumours the girl was being kept as a sex slave were exaggerated.
However at a press conference today, Mirufath Faiz, head of the family and child protection unit, said the investigation was still ongoing as her marriage in India to a 22-year-old Maldivian man was not legally recognised.
“What we are now investigating is the case of an under-aged girl who became pregnant,” she said.
The case of the ‘concubine’ was first brought to public attention by former Attorney General Azima Shukoor at a Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) rally.
Azima said she read on freelance journalist Hilath Rasheed’s blog that a woman who took an under-aged girl to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital told a doctor that she was her husband’s concubine.
Police and the Human Rights Commission of Maldives (HRCM) have since been trying to locate the girl.
Jeehan Mahmoud, spokesperson for the commission, told Minivan News today the matter had been handed over to the police.
“We are no longer investigating the concubine case,” she said.
Mirufath said today the investigation has shown that the matter became increasingly exaggerated as the stories came out of IGMH.
She said a Dr Shifan from IGMH told police the girl’s guardian told him that she was her husband’s concubine.
“But the older woman who took the girl denies this,” she said, adding hospital records show that she took the girl on two occasions in late June.
She said police began its investigation in September and gathered information of all girls who took pregnancy tests at IGMH from June.
In the process, she said, police learned that a 16-year-old girl tested positive.
In May, Ahmed Jihadhu, 22, M. Liyage, married the 16-year-old outside of court, she continued, and submitted a marriage certificate to the family court in June.
“But, even though the marriage took place in India, the family court informed police that the marriage was not registered as the girl was 16 years old,” she said.
Ahmed Jihadhu (pictured above) is currently in police custody on suspicion of harbouring a fugitive.
Mirufath said police have confirmed that the girl was aged 16 when the marriage in India took place and the scan in June showed she was six weeks pregnant. Doctors said she is due to give birth in March 2010.
The girl’s father told police he consented to the marriage on the condition that it would be registered in the Maldives and was unaware that it took place in India.
Mirufath stressed that the marriage was not legally recognised in the Maldives.
At a press conference today, Fathmath Yumna, director general of the department of gender and family protection service, said the department was first alerted to the family in 2003.
The girl’s step-father alleged her mother was abusing the children, she said. Both have since passed away.
The case worker noted that the girl was neglected and not being educated.
Yumna said the girl’s father expressed concern and have since agreed for the department to take her under its care.
She urged the media to be more responsible in its coverage and not reveal the girl’s identity.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday approved US$92.5 million in financial arrangements to help the Maldives adjust to the aftermath of the global recession and support the government’s economic policy.
The “blended financing arrangements” include a 36-month US$79.3 stand-by agreement, 600 per cent of the Maldives’ quota, and a 24-month US$13.2 under the fund’s exogenous shock facility high access component.
“The Maldivian economy was severely hit by the global crisis through significant declines in Maldives’ tourism receipts, capital inflows, and goods exports. Coming after unsustainable public spending over the last few years—partly reflecting post-tsunami reconstruction efforts—the crisis led to a very large fiscal deficit, a sharply weakened balance of payments position, and reserve losses,” reads a statement by Takatoshi Kato, deputy managing director and acting chair of the IMF executive board.
“The government’s ambitious policy program, supported by the IMF, is aimed at addressing the impact of the global economic crisis and restoring macroeconomic stability and fiscal sustainability. At the core of the program is a very strong effort to bring down the fiscal deficit while protecting social spending. To that end, the authorities are taking immediate action to cut spending, including unwinding part of the recent large wage increases, and are introducing new revenue measures to broaden the tax base. They have also taken steps to reform the civil service, improve the targeting of subsidies to the poor, and transfer enterprises and services to the private sector.”
In September, the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) ceased printing money to finance the budget deficit and launched open market operations to absorb excess liquidity of the rufiyaa in order to alleviate the dollar shortage.
Meanwhile, the government debt at the MMA has been converted to tradable securities, while it announced the issuance of treasury bonds denominated in US dollars last week.
“The authorities’ program, while subject to considerable risks, is strong, comprehensive, and well-focused, and deserves strong support of the international community. If fully implemented, it will put the Maldivian economy back on a path of macroeconomic stability and set the conditions for sustained economic growth and poverty reduction,” concludes the statement.
The government’s policy to restore macroeconomic stability and fiscal sustainability involves reducing expenditure and increasing revenue to lower the large budget deficit and introducing targeted subsidies to the poor for food and electricity.
Police have traced the internet connection of a man who allegedly threatened a 14-year-old girl online in an attempt to coerce her into “sexually indecent” behaviour.
“The perpetrator tried to demand the girl go to somewhere, and that he had photos and videos of her he would leak if she did not,” said Police Sergeant Shiyam.
Police said officers were initially approached by concerned friends of the girl during a school session on child abuse run by the family and child protection unit.
An investigation involving the police’s digital evidence unit tracked the man’s internet connection to his room, where police discovered three hard disks, two multimedia cards and two pen drives containing chat logs and emails threatening the girl.
“We are investigating how long it had been going on; we were lucky we found out about it so early,” Shiyam said.
The drives also contained nude photos and video clips of other young Maldivian girls, whom police said they were now trying to trace. Police said forensic evidence indicated that some of these photos had been uploaded to the internet.
The case has been forwarded to the Office of the Prosecutor General while police have released the perpetrator on a court order.
Investigating cases of online sexual abuse was “something new” for police, Shiyam said, “and something to be really concerned about.”
“Girls and boys are good at using the web and it’s not that easy to control and monitor them.”
Jeehan Mahmoud, spokesperson for Human Rights Commission Maldives (HRCM), said the Commission hoped that if found guilty the perpetrator would be charged under parliament’s new child abuse legislation that extends sentencing periods to a maximum of 25 years.
“Secondly, we want the concerned authorities to monitor the impact of multimedia on this type of crime more closely,” she said. “The Commission believes internet monitoring needs to be considered – it is something the state is obligated to do.”
Parents also needed to monitor their children’s use of the internet, she added. “Definitely parents need to be aware of what their children have access to. There hasn’t yet been a report into online [child abuse], but as it’s a growing trend perhaps it’s time to look into it further and find a way to curb it before it gets any bigger,” she said.
The Commission has received 10 reports of child abuse this year compared to four in the previous year, Jeehan said, “although it is difficult to say whether this due to an increase in reporting. People have certainly become better educated about human rights during the last four years.”
A Maldivian man fell to his death while painting the mast of a ship in India’s Tuticorin harbour, Haveeru reports.
The man suffered massive head injuries when he fell from the mast of the State Trading Organisation (STO) ship ‘MV Bonthi’, and was pronounced dead when he reached hospital.
STO officials told Haveeru the man was wearing a safety belt when he fell from the 8-10 foot tall mast, and the incident was being investigated.
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