Month: May 2011

DRP reports Umar Naseer to police for use of party letterhead

The opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), led by MP Ahmed Thasmeen Ali, have complained to police that the party’s former Deputy Leader was continuing to use the party’s logo and letterhead without authorisation of the DRP.

The DRP alleged that Naseer had sent a letter to the police concerning the recent protests, which was signed by Umar but with the letterhead of the DRP.

Yesterday the party told the press that Naseer had been violating the Political Parties Act and the decrees of the DRP council.

MP from former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s faction of the DRP, Ahmed Mahlouf, said it was “hard to believe that Umar Naseer would do something like that.”

“I do not think he actually did [send a letter],’’ Mahlouf said. “Thasmeen has just run out of things to do and wants to stay busy.’’

Whenever the opposition organised a protest, the police called and met with the organisers, said Mahlouf.

‘’We never send letters to police about protests, we always negotiate and discuss with them verbally,’’ he said.

Mahlouf said that if Naseer was to be banned from speaking at DRP rallies, Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) leader Dr Hassan Saeed should also be prevented from speaking at DRP-led rallies.

‘’For instance, I am the leader of DRP Youth Wing. If Umar is a person working closely with us, and we are organising a rally, why can’t he speak on DRP podiums?’’ Mahlouf questioned.

Mahlouf further stated that he did not believe that Naseer had been formally dismissed from the party, because Thasmeen had not followed due process.

“There is a suit filed in the court [concerning Naseer’s dismissal], hopefully we will win,’’ Mahlouf said.

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Supreme Court calls Umar Naseer not to proclaim outcomes of unresolved cases

The Supreme Court has called on former Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Deputy Leader Umar Naseer not to publicly predict court verdicts before judgments were reached.

The Supreme Court said Naseer had proclaimed to the media that the court would rule in his favor in a suit filed by Naseer himself against Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Mohamed Musthafa.

‘’Predicting the how the court might rule on a certain case obstructs the administration of justice,’’ said the Supreme Court, adding that the court had “authority to stop anything that might influence the judiciary.”

The court also warned that commenting on cases on sub judice was an offence under the Contempt of Court Act, the constitution and other relevant laws.

Such actions are considered as an offence under the ‘’Sub Judice rule’’ in other democratic countries as well, said the Supreme Court.

Last week speaking at a Z-DRP faction rally attended by former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Naseer said the MDP “must be warned that they are about to lose two seats in parliament.”

‘’One will be Musthafa. You will remember there is a suit filed against him in Supreme Court, a suit I filed. The suit has almost reached a verdict, and all statements have been signed. I’m sure Musthafa will lose his seat. The next one is [alleged] child molester Adhil [MDP MP Hassan Adil],’’ Umar said during the rally.

Umar filed the suit against Mustafa in 2009, alleging that Mustafa had not been paying a decreed debt.

Article 73 [c][1] of the constitution states that ‘’a person shall be disqualified from election as, a member of the People’s Majlis, or a member of the People’s Majlis immediately becomes disqualified, if he has a decreed debt which is not being paid as provided in the judgment.’’

People’s Alliance (PA) MP Ahmed Nazim is also before the court on corruption charges. The PA is aligned the former President’s faction of the opposition.

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HRCM organising four hour ‘sit-down’ against violent crime

The Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) has said it will hold a ‘sitting’ this Thursday in protest against a spate of violent criminal offenses committed recently.

HRCM has said it will gather near the Tsunami Monument in Boduthakurufaanu Magu at 8:00pm, and will remain sitting until 12:00am.

In a press release issued by HRCM, the organisation requested all persons attending the event to wear black clothing and wave a national flag.

Media Coordinator for HRCM Ahmed Rilwan said the event was not a protest, “but just an awareness program.”

‘’We can’t tell how many people will attend this event. So far many NGOs have confirmed that they will join us,’’ Rilwan said.

Rilwan said HRCM will would “collect opinions from everyone and forward them to the concerned departments.”

Meanwhile, former Attorney General Husnu Suood has criticised the commission in the media alleging it had done “practically no work” since the new commission members had been elected.

‘’Some say that the only duty of the HRCM’s members is to attend office on time,” Suood said. “The society does not even know they exist. This is their current situation,’’ Suood told newspaper Haveeru.

He also told the paper that there were “far more important things” that the commission should be doing than sitting down for four hours.

Rilwan said the commission would not respond to remarks made by the former Attorney General.

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Government not lifting expat worker limits, HR minister claims

Minister of Human Resources Hassan Lateef, has denied that the government has loosened quotas on the hiring of expatriate workers like domestic servants, claiming regulatory reforms published last week had been designed to try “simplify” hiring foreigners.

Lateef told Minivan News that under new reforms, organisations or individuals wanting to hire expatriates would no longer have to apply for a quota before completing a separate application for a work permit, as part of attempts to make hiring foreign staff easier for employees and employers alike.

The minister added that the amendments, expected to be in place from next week, would continue to permit eligible households to hire a single domestic servant only.

“Some media outlets have been reporting that the government has removed quotas on certain expatriate workers, but this is not the idea at all,” he claimed.

Newspaper Haveeru reported today that amendments had been put forward in the government gazette on Thursday (March 26) to lift quota limits on expatriate employees hired to work either for government authorities, or as volunteer social workers or domestic servants.

Lateef claimed that the published reforms represented a procedural change for the Ministry of Human Resources due to concerns that the additional requirements of imposing a quota system on foreign workers was “totally unnecessary” alongside the existing work permit system.

The minister claimed that the process of an employer having to apply for a separate staff quota had made it difficult to replace expatriate staff such as domestic help quickly.

“There is no point in having too many layers in terms of [hiring] procedure. When it comes to household staff, it can be difficult to replace expatriate workers quickly,” he said. “Yet each household can still apply for only one domestic servant. This criteria is exactly the same as before the amendments were put forward.”

After being published in the government gazette, Lateef said that the amendments were expected to come into place next week.

With these amended regulations coming into place within 15 days of their gazette publication, the minister said he believed that collaboration would be needed with other official bodies such as the Department of Immigration and Emigration to oversee the measures.

Immigration issues

Just last month, the Maldives’ Controller of Immigration told Minivan News that the country needed to address its failure in not having adopted a national immigration policy to protect and control an expatriate workforce, which he estimated to at least equal the number of domestic labourers.

Controller Abdulla Shahid said at the time that that a lack of immigration controls or quota policy in the Maldives had left valuable foreign workers vulnerable to “inhumane” treatment from unscrupulous employers once they had legitimately arrived in the country.

Lateef said that in considering these apparent issues with immigration control in the country, he accepted that the Ministry of Human Resources, Youth and Sports would need to work collaboratively with fellow ministries over the changes.

“One cannot separate the issue of hiring expatriate workers between the immigration department and human resources officials. Like with any foreign workers, in hiring domestic servants we do have some [immigration] problems, which is why both systems should be linked,” he said.

Lateef claimed that there was significant work to be done with implementing the new regulations therefore, potentially requiring some additional policy changes to be made by the Department of Immigration and Emmigration.

However, speaking about the amendments to hire expatriate workers and replace the previous quota systems, Immigration Controller Shahid said today that he saw the new system as nothing more than a procedural change that would not significantly impact border control.

Although the changes to the quota requirements were likely to put more responsibility on labour authorities at the Ministry of Human resources, Shahid claimed the system was expected to make hiring expatriate domestic servants a “bit easier” in the country in the future.

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China-Maldives bilateral trade volume reaches US$64 million: People’s Daily

Bilateral trade between China and the Maldives reached US$64 million last year, on the back of a boom in Chinese tourist arrivals, up 56 percent on 2009, writes Liao Zhengjun for the Chinese newspaper The People’s Daily.

“China has actively encouraged successful domestic enterprises to participate in the Maldives’ infrastructure construction and other projects. With preferential loans from the Chinese government, a Chinese company is now busy constructing the 1,000 Housing Units Project in the Maldives, the largest economic and trade cooperation project since the two countries established diplomatic relations.

“The project is expected to greatly alleviate the overcrowding in Male, the capital of the Maldives. “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” and the two countries have stood by each other at all times and under all circumstances. China provided immediate assistance to the Maldives when it was hit by the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, and the Maldives also offered a helping hand shortly after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.

As the cultural exchanges and cooperation between the two countries have been steadily expanding in recent years, tourism has become an emerging area for the bilateral cooperation. More and more Chinese people see the Maldives as a favorable tourist destination. According to statistics from the Maldives government, the Maldives received nearly 120,000 Chinese tourists in 2010, marking that China has become its largest source country of foreign tourists.”

Read more

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MDP misleading citizens over the extent of support for the party, claims DRP MP Mahlouf

Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Ahmed Mahlouf, of the faction led by former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, today accused the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) of “misleading the public over the extent of their support” and “attempting to lure more citizens to the party.”

”In all the elections held so far, be they Local Councils Elections or Parliamentary Elections, the citizens have said they oppose the current government and its party MDP,” Mahlouf claimed. ”So today what MDP do is gather all the supporters they have all around the Maldives and buy MPs, trying to show the rest of the country that they have more support than the opposition.”

Mahlouf alleged that MDP was attempting to “psychologically play with the minds of the citizens.”

”They do have some supporters in Male’, and what they do is gather all their supporters to one place, take pictures and show them to the other citizens, trying to make them feel that MDP has more support than it does,” he said. ”In the Local Council Elections MDP won only 379,494 votes while the opposition won 565,919 votes.”

Mahlouf claimed the MDP would not have won the Presidential elections “without the help of Jumhoory Party (JP) leader MP ‘Burma’ Gasim Ibrahim, Adhaalath Party leader Sheikh Hussein Rasheed and Dhivehi Qaumy Party (DQP) leader Dr Hassan Saeed.”

”But they all have turned their backs against this government now – they all want to change this administration,” said Mahlouf. ”It is really a foregone conclusion that MDP will not win the next presidential election in 2013.”

Mahlouf’s comments followed the defection of two DRP MPs, Ali Waheed and Abdu-Raheem, to the ruling MDP, granting the party the largest voting bloc in the Majlis.

MDP MP Mohamed Shifaz said that both Mahlouf and the DRP had “failed”.

”It is regrettable that someone as young as Mahlouf declined to accept democracy and rather decided to follow a single person,” said Shifaz. ”The entire party failed because some among them wanted to follow this one person.”

Shifaz said that regardless of Mahlouf’s figures, 75 percent of the Maldivian population supported the MDP.

”There are unregistered persons who support the idea of MDP,” he said. ”All the MPs who joined MDP, only joined because they wanted to do so.”

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Fire destroys staff accommodation at Maamigili airport

Villa International Airport’s staff accommodation blocks in Maamigili, South Ari Atoll, caught fire on Saturday morning cause Rf 2 million damage to the company.

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said the fire was controlled by the airport firefighters after an hour.

‘’We have not been able to confirm the cause of the fire, but they say there was an electric failure inside the block,’’ Shiyam said. ‘’We are still investigating the incident.’’

Local media reports that the accommodation block was built using tin and plywood. The three blocks burned to the ground leaving nothing behind, airport manager Mahmoodh Ali told Haveeru.

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Family blames doctor after mother dies during labour

A 34 year-old pregnant woman who was admitted to Laamu Atoll Regional Hospital died after undergoing a cesarean.

Family members claimed the doctor mistakenly cut some veins during the operation, reports Haveeru, despite receiving three pints of blood in an emergency transfusion.

The woman had requested to undergo a C-section as she felt the baby was large, however the doctor declined until the last minute, the family told Haveeru.

After the cesarean, the hospital advised the family to take her Male’ as soon as possible, but since the family was unable to catch a flight that night they waited for a Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) helicopter to arrive the following morning. The woman died that evening.

The hospital has declined to comment, only stating that it would provide information to the press after a staff meeting.

The baby survived the procedure and is in a stable condition.

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Cabinet decision not a green light for Nexbis project, says Immigration Controller

Cabinet’s decision last week to review the stalled Nexbis project did not necessarily mean it was going ahead, said Immigration Controller Abdulla Shahid today.

The Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement with the Malaysian-based mobile security solutions provider was to upgrade border security in the Maldives and facilitate the identification and tracking of expatriate workers without the use of potentially-forged paper documents.

However the day after the October 2010 signing of the concessionaire contract, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) announced it had received “a serious complaint” regarding “technical details” of the bid, and issued an injunction pending an investigation into the agreement citing “instances and opportunities” where corruption may have occurred.

Nexbis shares immediately plunged 6.3 percent on the back of the ACC’s announcement. The company subsequently issued a statement claiming that speculation over corruption was “politically motivated” and had “wrought irreparable damage to Nexbis’ reputation and brand name.”

“Nexbis’ shareholders own and manage multi-trillion dollar assets globally and will not jeopardise their reputation for an investment return,” the company said at the time.

Shahid said today that following the Cabinet decision the Immigration Department would be “looking into the ACC’s concerns and negotiating with Nexbis.”

“Cabinet did not say the project would proceed, but have announced that it would be reviewed. The ACC’s initial position was that the project would be re-tendered with the consent of Cabinet.”

Shahid acknowledge threats of legal action from Nexbis, but observed there was “nothing we can do on this issue – it was the ACC that intervened.”

He predicted that it would be “some time” before the review was completed.

Local media has claimed that key technical components, such as facial recognition, were missing from the project.

Minivan News is currently seeking comment from Nexbis.

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