Day: April 16, 2011

Six Senses and Biosphere Expeditions offering reef conservation scholarships

Biosphere Expeditions and Six Senses properties are offering two scholarships for Maldivians with dive qualifications and English language skills, to take part in a new coral reef and whale shark study being conducted in September 2011.

Scholarship recipients will be trained in reef and whale shark research techniques and assist scientists from around the world in a study designed to provide data to the Maldivian government so that it can make informed conservation decisions.

The project, based on the liveaboard Carpe Diem cruising the archipelago, will see Biosphere Expeditions working with the Maldives Marine Research Centre (MRC) of the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, Reef Check and the Marine Conservation Society to study and safeguard the coral reefs and the resident whale shark population.

Biologist Matthias Hammer, Reef Check trainer and Executive Director of Biosphere Expeditions, described the reefs of the Maldives archipelago and its fish population as “extraordinarily diverse and rich. They are also in a relatively pristine state and having both these factors together is quite rare. As less than one per cent of the world’s oceans are protected, it is very important that we monitor and manage areas that are doing well.”

The economy and the well-being of the entire nation, Hammer said, “is largely dependent on a healthy and sustainably-managed marine environment.”

Marine Biologist Kate Wilsonat Six Senses’ property Soneva Fushi in Baa Atoll observed that the scholarships would allow Maldivians “to work alongside and learn from some top marine biologists, enabling them to get hands-on experience of monitoring coral reef ecosystems and whale sharks in the Maldives. It is a fantastic opportunity for keen and enthusiastic divers that want to develop skills in marine surveying, enabling them to continue surveying long after the scholarship ends.”

Six Senses said in a statement that successful scholarship applicants “need to be able to demonstrate a genuine interest in the marine environment and [show] that they will use the experience to the benefit of the Maldives’ marine resources, carrying the message to other people and multiplying the effect of their experience.”

The deadline for applications deadline is July 29, with the expedition taking place in September later this year. Applicants must be 18 or older. For more information visit www.biosphere-expeditions.org/scholarships

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New exchange rate vital for long-term economic prosperity: President

President Mohamed Nasheed has said that the government’s decision to implement a managed float of the rufiya was necessary “to ensure the long term stability and prosperity of the Maldives.”

The government announced last week that it was allowing the rufiya to be exchanged for the dollar within 20 percent of the pegged rate of Rf12.85. Many businesses dealing in imported goods and several banks, including the Bank of Maldives (BML), immediately raised their rate exchange to the maximum permitted rate of Rf 15.42, exceeding the average Rf14.2 rate of the formerly institutionalised blackmarket.

Speaking during his weekly radio address, President Nasheed thanked the public and local businesses “for their patience and faith”, and predicted that the economy would show positive signs of stabilising in three months’ time.

“Changing the exchange rate mechanism [and] maintaining the value of rufiya is linked to finding a permanent solution for the constraints on our economic development,” he said, explaining that the decision would allow the government to “finance budget deficit, increase productivity, and increase export of goods and services.”

The President suggested that the financial shake-up caused by the move would not be as significant as many feared, because most importing businesses had been calculating the value of the dollar as higher than the government’s previously pegged rate.

“The government is confident of an expeditious fall in the prices of goods and services as the exchange rate stabilises,” said the President’s Office, in a statement.

A crackdown on the illegal sale of dollars on the  blackmarket the previous week – following a speech in which the President promised to “put a policeman behind every dollar” – failed to address the high demand for foreign currency particuarly among the country’s expatriate population, who had relied on blackmarket dollars for remittances.

Many of the country’s 100,000 foreign workers, particularly a large percentage of labourers from Bangladesh, are paid in Maldivian rufiya by their employers and became increasingly desperate as paranoia following the crackdown limited blackmarket exchanges.

Meanwhile protests organised by the various opposition factions this week in response to the managed the managed float attracted a surprisingly low turnout, given the potential for the government’s decision to raise the cost of living by up to 20 percent in the short-term.

While the move drew praise from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which described it as a “bold step toward restoring external sustainability,” a number of Maldivian economists in the private sector remain convinced that the government’s effective devaluing of the currency will only temporarily ward off economic catastrophe in the face of crippling over-expenditure.

In an article for Minivan News this week, Director of Structured Finance at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Ali Imraan, observed that ‘growth’ in the domestic economy had been driven by the public sector  and “paid for by printing Maldivian rufiya and clever manoeuvres with T-Bills, which the government has used since 2009 to be able conveniently sidestep the charge of printing money. In simple terms: successive governments printed/created money to drive domestic economic growth.”

Imraan pressed for the Maldives to invest in private sector revenue growth “rather than building airports on every island”, and implement a progressive taxation system targeting high earners in the interest of income equality. He also urged the Majlis to uphold the constitutional stipulation whereby MPs – such as those with business interest in the tourism sector – removed themselves from voting on issue in which they had a vested interest, and further suggested that the government resolve the matter of stalled tourism developments “awarded to parties with no money or track record.”

“Moratoriums on lease payments or debt repayments may look innocuous enough, but they rob the country of vital growth opportunities and hence ultimately rob the people. We should not stand for it,” he said.

Imraan’s latter suggestion proved somewhat prescient when the Tourism Ministry renewed the lease for Hudhufushi in Lhaviyani Atoll, despite the resort island’s owner owing more than US$85 million in unpaid rent – most of it fines for non-payment.

The government’s decision to implement a managed float of the currency came as a least one local sales agent for international airlines operating in and out of the Maldives closed its doors to customers, blaming an inability to pay the airlines because of a lack of US dollars circulating within the economy.

A local financial expert working in the private sector, Ahmed Adheeb, had also warned that a shortage of foreign currency would reduce the prospect of foreign investment, because of the difficulty of repatriating profits to the home country.

“Dhiraagu, for instance, is probably having a lot of difficulties repatriating dividends to Cable&Wireless,” Adeeb said. “This can lead to a fall in investor confidence. When that happens, foreign investors will either try to exit or stay away. We will only see foreign investment that earns dollars, such as resorts.”

The problem would soon lead to inflation and difficulties importing essentials such as fuel and medicines, he suggested, and could potentially have a major impact if the State Trading Organisation (the country’s primary importer) found itself unable to acquire foreign currency.

Following the devaluation Adheeb warned that the impacts would be felt strongly in sectors such as construction, as dollars were already becoming scarcer as tourism wound down for off-season and Hajj pilgrims searched for dollars.

The general public would be also be impacted as the cost of commodities rose to fill the new exchange rate, while the government’s commitment to projects such as harbour construction could be delayed due to the risks of taking on even more debt.

“This will also affect business contracts, particularly [those concerning] foreign employment, and students studying overseas,” Adheeb said, predicting that “if the market does not stabilise then in three months time we will see a further devaluation. The government is taking a huge risk.”

Announcing the decision this week, Economic Development Minister Mahmoud Razee candidly stated that as a result of the artificially fixed exchange rate, “we do not really know, based on the breadth of the domestic economy, what the value of the Maldivian rufiya is right now.”

Given Nasheed’s radio address yesterday, the government has three months to find out.

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Mubarak may face execution as protests and violence continue to engulf region

Egypt’s former president may face execution over allegations he ordered the killing of demonstrators opposed to his rule, while Syrian security officials have reportedly violently suppressed thousands of anti-government protesters as political unrest continues to rock the Middle East and North Africa.

Syria, along with a number of nations including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia have all reportedly witnessed surges in anti-government activism in recent months as political unrest has spread through the region leading to demonstrations against their respective rulers – all to varying degrees of success.

The BBC reported yesterday that security forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad have continued to crack down on protests during a “month of unrest”. Amidst this political landscape, news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) revealed that Egypt’s currently detained former leader Hosni Mubarak could stand trial and face the death penalty over suspicions that he ordered the murder of activists opposed to his rule.

The AFP cited reports in local state-owned media that prominent figures in Cairo’s Appeals Court had claimed that the execution of the former president could be possible if he was convicted of having a role in murdering protestors who stood against his rule at mass demonstrations across the country before Mubarak eventually stood down in February as activism intensified.

According to the report, the head of the country’s Appeals Court said that if testimony by Habib al-Adly, a interior minister serving under Mubarak, implicating the disposed president in approving the shooting of some protestors proved to be true, he too could face a custodial sentence or execution.

Media reports suggest that up to 800 people are thought to have been killed during a wave of protests before Mubarak was finally toppled. However, further protests in the country has thought to have been averted by authorities following the detention of Mubarak and his two sons Alaa and Gamal over alleged links to violent suppression, the AFP reported.

Meanwhile, Syrian authorities have also been charged with violently suppressing it citizens, with the BBC reporting have been some of the largest-scale protests yet seen in the country calling for an end to the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

According to the news agency, tear gas and batons were used by authorities to repel protestors that reportedly had gathered in their thousands in Damascus to continue to demand al-Assad’s resignation despite his attempts to make “some concessions” to his rule.

State media reportedly confirmed that small demonstrations had taken place across the country without the intervention of security officials, the BBC added.

In its own coverage of the protests, Al Jazeera reported that some witnesses in Damascus claimed that some 15 buses full of secret police had been drafted in to try and quell protests, while plain clothes-armed men were reported to have surrounded protestors gathered outside the Salam mosque in the city’s Barzeh district.

The news agency added that protests carried out against the government elsewhere in the country such as Baniyas, Latakia, Baida and Homs appeared to have gone ahead peacefully.

Reuters reported that unrest was also continuing elsewhere in the region this week with hundreds of Shias protesting around the Saudi Arabian region of Qatif to demand the release of prisoners they claim to have been held without a trial on political and religious grounds.

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