Day: June 22, 2013

Resorts hope for end to “food and beverage nightmare” as Maldives suppliers run out of gas

Resort operators and businesses across the Maldives have been forced to dramatically alter menus and even temporarily close entire restaurants after weeks of disruptions to the supply of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).

The general manager of one exclusive resort told Minivan News that LPG shortage had created a “food and beverage nightmare” over the last three weeks.

“Comedy of errors”

Maldive Gas, a major supplier of cooking gas to both resort operators and restaurants across the country’s inhabited islands, released a statement (Dhivehi) on Thursday (June 20) saying it expected the LPG issue to be resolved today.

Apologising to its customers, Maldive Gas stated that it had been forced to ration LPG to clients to avoid running out, citing a malfunction in the engine of a cargo vessel bringing a shipment to the Maldives as the reason for the issue.

Asked whether the company had resolved the LPG shortage today as promised, Maldive Gas requested Minivan News contact a company representative at its plant on the island of Thilafushi, who was not responding to calls at time of press.

Speaking to local media today, Maldive Gas Managing Director Ahmed Wafir announced that the company had since removed restrictions over the supply of LPG.

“Gas is now available as it was available from us before, without any limit,” he was quoted as telling Sun Online.

Minivan News understands that other key local suppliers such as Villa Gas have also been affected by the recent LPG shortage. Local businesses that are customers of the company said today they had been informed the issue would be resolved within the next 24 hours.

Despite the supplier’s claims, a resort general manager told Minivan News on condition of anonymity that many of the country’s exclusive island properties had been forced to drastically cut their menus due to a “comedy of errors” by suppliers.

The source claimed suppliers had been experiencing gas shortages even before reports surfaced that a transport vessel had broken down around 200 kilometres from Male’.

According to the general manager, very little information had been given by suppliers over what had led to the rationing, which was having a direct impact on a large number of tourism properties.

“All resorts have been affected from what we’re told, and what I’ve heard from other resorts. This also happened the same time last year and it seems suppliers have not learnt from this,” the resort source claimed.

The general manager said that aside from having to minimise menus, catering staff on the property had been forced to set up barbecues around the resort to try and feed guests, with certain restaurants and an on-site pizza oven out of use for most of the month.

“Needless to say, there have been complaints from guests,” the source responded, when asked about the potential damage the shortage of LPG would have on the Maldives’ reputation as a high-end tourism destination.

The general manager added that although the resort had continued to receive a limited supply of around two bottles of LPG a day during the shortage, this had been insufficient to meet the property’s average daily consumption of eight.

“Suppliers have told us normal service will resume by this evening, I’m about 90 percent certain [it will resume],” the source said.

In Male’, local media reported that a number of cafes and restaurants had also been negatively impacted by gas shortages over the last week, with some even forced to close.

“Very scary”

Local businessman Fasy Ismael, the co-owner of several well-known restaurants in the capital including The Sea House Maldives, Jade Bistro and Oxygen, described the challenge of trying to secure LPG as “very scary” for businesses such as his in recent weeks.

“We weren’t sure when we’d get LPG in, and thought we might have to shut down for a couple of days,” he said.

Fasy claimed that even today, his restaurants had only been receiving half the total amount needed to run the businesses.

“For the last week, we haven’t been able to get a full supply from Maldive Gas. Villas Gas has not been able to supply us for two weeks,” he said. “We are lucky we use two different suppliers to meet our needs.”

Fasy said today that both gas suppliers had promised that supply would be returned to normal by tomorrow at the latest.

He said his restaurants had narrowly managed to stay open, thanks to a large reserve stock of 15 bottles.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

GMR compensation claim of US$1.4 billion eclipses annual state budget

Indian infrastructure giant GMR has filed a claim for US$1.4 billion in compensation from the Maldives, following the government’s sudden termination of its concession agreement to manage and upgrade Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA).

According to Indian media, the 75 page claim for “wrongful termination” of the concession agreement includes payments to subcontractors and loss of profits over the lifespan of the 25 year agreement.

Both the government and the state-owned Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) will be invited to respond, with a final court order in the case expected in March 2014.

In separate Singapore-based arbitration proceedings one of the project’s lenders, Axis Bank, is also seeking payment of US$160 million for a loan guaranteed by the Maldivian Finance Ministry.

Axis Bank recently raised concerns with MACL and the government, after President Mohamed Waheed moved to create a state-owned airport company and transfer to it MACL’s management responsibilities.

The prospect of MACL’s assets being dissipated led Airports Council International (ACI), the global body representing the world’s airports, to advise its members to exercise caution before making any investment in the Maldives relating to INIA, warning of “legal and financial risks”.

The government subsequently dropped the attempt, after its Attorney General Aishath Bisham warned that President Waheed had exceeded his authority in appointing board members to the new entity.

The lead up to eviction

GMR, in consortium with Malaysia Airports, narrowly won the International Finance Corporation (IFC)-managed bid for the airport in 2010, and signed the agreement with MACL under the former government of Mohamed Nasheed

The then-opposition, including the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM), People’s Alliance (PA), Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) and Adhaalath Party (AP), opposed the agreement primarily on nationalistic grounds, and alleged corruption in the bidding process.

Other concerns raised by the opposition at the time included the prospect of GMR allowing Israeli military aircraft to stop over in the Maldives and refuel “after bombing Arab countries”.

The DQP then filed a civil court case, managing to block the developer’s charging of an Airport Development Charge (ADC) stipulated in the concession agreement, on the grounds it was a tax and therefore required parliamentary approval.

Backing the concession agreement, the Nasheed government permitted the airport developer to deduct the ADC from its share of the revenue as a stopgap measure, while it sought to appeal.

However shortly afterwards the Nasheed government was deposed during February 7 2012’s controversial transfer of power, and the opposition parties assumed control of the government – and the prospect of paying GMR for the development of the airport.

The government received US$525,355 from the airport for the first quarter of 2012, compared to the US$8.7 million it was expecting, at time it was facing a crippling budget deficit, a foreign currency shortage, plummeting investor confidence, spiraling expenditure, and a drop off in foreign aid.

In the second quarter GMR presented MACL with a bill for US$1.5 million, and in the third quarter, US$2.2 million.

“The net result of this is that the Maldivian government now has to pay GMR for running the airport,” wrote DQP Leader and newly-appointed Special Advisor to President Mohamed Waheed, Dr Hassan Saeed, in a self-described “candid” letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

A subsequent report by the government’s own Auditor General (AG) found concession revenue due the government had plummeted fourfold as a result of the court verdict sought by Saeed’s own party while it was in opposition.

According to the report, net concession revenue to the government had fallen to just US$6,058,848 in 2012, compared to US$25,424,877 in 2011.

Rather than appeal the Civil Court verdict obstructing the ADC, “The new government took the view that it would not be proper for it to intervene in the legal process for the benefit of a private concern,” the report noted, and instead, on April 19 2012, the informed the developer it was “retracting the previous agreement [to offset the ADC] on the grounds that the then Chairman of MACL did not have the approval of the MACL board to make the agreement.”

GMR asserted that this decision was a political event as defined within its concession agreement, and warned that this would amount to a breach of the agreement by the government.

“The government did not accept this argument,” noted the AG.

Seeking a way out of the agreement but wary of the heavy penalties in the termination clause, the government accused the World Bank’s IFC of “irresponsibility” and “negligence” in its conduct of the bidding process.

“The government must also consider how much money has to be paid back as compensation if terminating the agreement,” said Attorney General at the time, Azima Shukoor, during a prescient press conference in September 2012.

“It is clear to all of you that the Maldives financial and economic situation is at a critical level, and in this situation [termination] is not an easy thing to do,” Shukoor said.

In August 2012, with the new terminal and refurbishment 25 percent complete according to the government’s outside engineering assessment, the government ordered a halt to construction pending new ‘regulatory approvals’, and demanded a second runway not included in the original agreement.

GMR agreed to construct an emergency runway and proposed exempting Maldivian nationals from paying the ADC as a compromise. The company received no response to the offer.

Dr Hassan Saeed meanwhile issued a pamphlet calling for the cancellation of the agreement, likening it to “taking bitter medicine to cure a disease” or “amputating an organ to stop the spread of cancer.”

In his letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, dated September 19 2012 and obtained by Minivan News, Saeed further claimed that “GMR and India ‘bashing’ is becoming popular politics”, and warned that “as a result, “the Maldives is becoming fertile ground for nationalistic and extremist politicians.”

“I want to warn you now that there is a real danger that the current situation could create the opportunity for these extremist politicians to be elected to prominent positions, including the Presidency and Parliament on an anti-GMR and anti-India platform,” Saeed informed Singh.

Saeed went on to accuse GMR of extensive bribery, including the payment of “millions of dollars to buy MPs to get a parliamentary majority for the then ruling Maldivian Democratic Party”.

He claimed that “politicians and MPs who end up in GMR’s pocket keep silent but no one – with the exception of former President Nasheed and his key associates – have defended the indefensible GMR deal in public.”

Eviction

In late 2012 the government declared the concession agreement ‘void ab initio’ (invalid from the outset), and gave GMR seven days’ notice to leave the country.

The move swiftly followed the Singapore Supreme Court’s lifting of an injunction blocking MACL from taking over the airport pending arbitration proceedings, on the grounds the arbitration court had no jurisdiction to prevent the Maldives as a sovereign state from expropriating the airport.

The full verdict however did not exempt the government from compensation for this maneuver. In fact, according to the verdict document, Financial Controller for the Ministry of Finance Mohamed Ahmed “affirmed in an affidavit that the Maldives government would honour any valid and legitimate claim against it. He also stressed that the Maldives government had never defaulted on any of its payments.”

Moreover, lawyer representing MACL, Christopher Anand Daniel, “also accepted that if the arbitration tribunal found that the Appellants were wrong in their asserted case that the Concession Agreement was void ab initio and/or had been frustrated, but the Appellants had by then already gone ahead with the taking over of the airport, they would at least be liable to compensate the respondent for having expropriated the airport” (emphasis retained).

ACC exonerates airport deal

The Auditor General’s report acknowledged allegations of corruption in the deal, but finding the evidence “not conclusive on this point”, deferred to the judgement of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

That arrived on June 17, 2013, in the form of a 61 page investigative report that concluded that the bidding process was conducted fairly by the IFC, and that the GMR-MAHB consortium won the contract by proposing the highest net present value of the concession fee.

The ACC further concluded that the awarding of the contract did not contravene amendments brought to the Public Finance Act requiring parliamentary approval for such agreements.

Furthermore,  “Considering the situation (2008, 2009 and 2010) when the decision was made to privatise the Male’ International Airport,” the ACC’s calculations showed that MACL would make a profit of about US$254 million in 25 years if the airport was operated by the government-owned company.

Conversely, the government would receive about US$534 million in the same period from the GMR consortium if the airport was privatised, the ACC found.

Reactions

Following publication of the ACC’s report, the government has backed away from allegations of corruption and instead declared to evict the developer was made due to its impact on state finances.

“Back before the government took back control of the airport from GMR, the reason we gave was that the deal was bleeding the country’s economy. We were paying GMR to keep them here,” President’s Office Spokesperson Masood Imad told Minivan News last week.

Azima Shukoor meanwhile labelled ACC’s report “incomplete” and “lacking professionalism”, in an interview with local media.

“There’s no contradiction between the government’s decision and the ACC report. We never levelled any corruption charge in terminating the agreement,” said the former Attorney General, in an interview with local media.

“Did [the ACC] omit the factors deliberately or unknowingly or simply just overlooked them? But a lot of factors have been overlooked and omitted from the report. The state will suffer great losses because of it. Especially when the country is tied up in [arbitration proceedings],” Shukoor was reported as saying.

“The state did a thorough investigation of the contract, including what happened during and after the signing of the agreement. So the government’s legal position doesn’t and shouldn’t change due to the report. We made a very firm decision,” she said.

Speaking at a campaign rally on the island of Thimarafushi in Thaa Atoll, former President Nasheed observed that the figure sought by GMR as compensation amounted to more than the annual state budget of the Maldives.

“Even today in my view it is one of the most important duties of the People’s Majlis to renew the contract, find a way to hold discussions with the company over [renewal], and save the Maldives from the great misfortune our people are about to face,” he said.

Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s PPM have meanwhile laid the blame for the airport debacle on President Waheed, accusing him of “ignoring advice”.

“We told the next President Mr Waheed that he should hold discussions with the GMR Group and the Indian government to arrive at an acceptable solution, after which the government was free to act on its own,” he said. “Unfortunately, this was not done and suddenly there was this unhappy ending,” Gayoom was reported as saying in the Hindu, following a visit to India and a meeting with Prime Minister Singh.

Following the PPM’s apparent turnaround on the GMR issue, Parliamentary Group Leader of the Waheed-aligned Dhivehi Rayithunge Party, Dr Abdulla Mausoom, said it was in fact senior figures in the PPM who were among the most vocal supporters for terminating the GMR agreement.

“It is ironic that we are hearing these statements from the PPM, whose leader has been witnessed supporting rallies demanding the cancellation of the [GMR] agreement,” he said.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Nasheed welcomes scrutiny of MDP government finances, calls for ACC investigations

Former President Mohamed Nasheed has called for investigations by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) into government spending during his administration flagged by the Auditor General’s Office as ostensible violations of the Public Finance Act.

Speaking at a campaign rally in the Henveiru ward of Male’ on Wednesday night (June 19), Nasheed said he accepted the findings of audit reports concerning public finances during the three years of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) government.

“We were the government that first started work with independent institutions in place. We were the government that had the good fortune of having been the target of audits by an independent Auditor General for the first time; and the government that had the opportunity to govern with the oversight of an independent Anti-Corruption Commission,” the MDP presidential candidate said.

“Our purpose, our wish, is for all government funds to be accounted for and for all expenditures to be transparent. I assure all citizens of the Maldives, I will not touch a single cent of your money,” he added.

Nasheed said he was pleased that of the MVR 31 billion (US$2 billion) spent by the MDP government from 2009 to 2011, the Auditor General’s Office only estimated that approximately six percent was “not spent in accordance with public finance regulations.”

“No one has said that [these expenses] involved corrupt dealings or facilitated corruption,” he stressed, calling for investigations by the ACC to determine whether corruption or misappropriation of funds had taken place.

Nasheed said he had studied all the audit reports of government ministries from 2009 to 2011 released by the Auditor General’s Office so far.

“What I want to note is that [expenditure] not being in line with public finance regulations does not mean corruption has taken place or that a criminal offence was committed,” he contended.

The Auditor General’s role was identifying expenditures made in breach of regulations, Nasheed explained, while the financial loss to the state as a result of the ostensibly illegal spending would be determined in light of investigations.

Taking examples of cases highlighted in audit reports, Nasheed referred to the purchase of five cars for government use flagged in the 2011 audit report of the finance ministry.

The audit report noted that a local company was contracted in December 2010 to buy five Nissan Sunny N16 Super Saloon cars for MVR 2.9 million (US$193,904).

However, the company delivered Nissan cars of the Ex Saloon model, the audit found.

“So what we have to find out is whether there was a difference in price between the two brands and which [brand] was cheaper,” Nasheed said.

The case reminded him of the Violet House group in Majeedhiyya School ordering a set of football boots when he was in school, Nasheed said.

“What they received was a set of key chain boots,” he said.

On the Auditor General discovering that the MDP government spent MVR 13.9 million (US$901,426) to train 259 participants of the ‘Hunaru’ skills programme, Nasheed said the programme was brought to a halt after the “coup d’etat” on February 7, 2012 and no further participants were trained despite being enrolled.

The initial spending included capital expenditures for the skills training programme, which targeted leading 8,500 youth to the job market, Nasheed noted.

While the Auditor General’s Office calculated that MVR 50,000 (US$3,242) on average was spent to train a single participant, Nasheed contended that if the programme had concluded successfully, “we estimated at the time that the Hunaru programme could be conducted for about MVR 7,000 or MVR 8,000 per participant.”

On MVR 8.1 million (US$525,291) worth of unpaid bills in the aviation sector owed to the government, Nasheed called on the Auditor General’s Office to forward the case to the ACC for further investigation and to recover the outstanding payments.

“The national administration office of the North [Province] made illegal expenditures for travel [according to the audit report],” Nasheed continued “In this case, if these trips were made in violation of the regulations, we want it to be stopped and for those who do it – even if they were under our government – to receive the just punishment.”

Referring to the Auditor General alleging illegal expenditures for the November 2011 SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) in Addu City, Nasheed said the party wished to determine the nature of the expenses in question.

“I can certainly see the convention center built there, the roads laid in Hithadhoo and the water and sewerage systems as well as the harbour there,” Nasheed said, contending that the costs would not exceed the “concrete work” that was done.

However, he added, if the Auditor General believes there were instances of illegal spending for the SAARC summit, the cases should be properly investigated.

On MVR 168.4 million (US$10.9 million) worth of unpaid expatriate work permit fees owed to the government, Nasheed said the oversight was “worrying” and called for the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) to file court cases to recover the outstanding payments.

The former president also took note of the ACC’s recent investigative report that cleared the previous government of corruption in the awarding of a concession agreement to a consortium of Indian infrastructure giant GMR and the Malaysian Airports Holdings Berhard (MAHB) to develop and manage the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA).

Nasheed said he had rejected requests for meetings by the companies that had submitted proposals for the airport privatisation project as he believed such interaction ahead of the conclusion of the bidding process would not be appropriate.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Adhaalath Party head accused of attempting to influence ACC investigation into GMR

Adhaalath Party President Sheikh Imran Abdulla attempted to influence the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC)’s investigation into alleged corruption in the previous government’s aborted airport privatisation deal, a commission member alleged to local media outlet CNM.

The ACC member, on condition of anonymity, reportedly alleged that the commission during its investigation came under heavy criticism from Sheikh Imran over its refusal to tailor the report to his liking.

The ACC’s findings, which were published last week, concluded that there was no corruption in the airport privatisation deal, days prior to GMR claiming US$1.4 billion in compensation for “wrongful termination” of its 25 year concession agreement.

“He met with me on two occasions. The first meeting happened just a day before they were to have a big night of protests. He requested that the ACC help the national movement’s efforts to drive GMR away and to speed up our investigation and conclude it in such a fashion that would assist their efforts,” CNM quoted the commission member as saying.

The second meeting took place a day before the national movement’s protests concluded, he claimed.

According to the unnamed commission member, Imran requested a five-minute meeting.

“On the second night he told me that he hoped the ACC would include at least one phrase that would be helpful to the national movement,” he said.

ACC President Hassan Luthfee had his phone switched off when contacted regarding the allegations today.

Sheikh Imran and national movement steering committee member and spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza were not responding to calls from Minivan News at time of press.

Last Monday, the ACC ruled out corruption in the awarding of a concession agreement in June 2010 to a consortium of Indian infrastructure giant GMR and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhard (MAHB) to develop and manage INIA.

In a 61-page investigative report (Dhivehi), the ACC concluded that the bidding process was conducted fairly by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and that the GMR-MAHB consortium won the contract by proposing the highest net present value of the concession fee.

The ACC further concluded that the awarding of the contract did not contravene amendments brought to the Public Finance Act requiring parliamentary approval for such agreements.

The amendments were published in the government gazette after the concession agreement was signed, the ACC noted.

In December 2012, shortly after the protests led by Sheikh Imran Abdulla under the self-titled ‘national movement’ against GMR concluded, the government of President Mohamed Waheed Hassan abruptly terminated the agreement and gave GMR a seven day ultimatum to leave the country.

“The government has given a seven day notice to GMR to leave the airport. The agreement states that GMR should be given a 30 day notice but the government believes that since the contract is void, it need not be followed,” then-Attorney General (AG) Azima Shukoor said in a press conference announcing the decision.

Shukoor claimed that the government reached the decision after considering “technical, financial and economic” issues surrounding the agreement.

Criticism

Responding to the ACC report in local media, Sheikh Imran Abdulla described the findings as a “slap in the peoples’ face.”

He claimed that the public now resented the ACC due to its findings and that the commission had lost credibility as a result of the report.

Imran contended that the report would facilitate the return of GMR should the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) win the September presidential election.

Responding to the ACC’s findings, the government of President Waheed insisted that the report would have no impact on its legal position to declare the GMR concession agreement void, contending that President Waheed’s decision had nothing to do with corruption allegations levelled by “some people”.

President’s Office Media Secretary Masood Imad told Minivan News following the release of the report that the contract was declared void from the beginning due to the negative impact on state finances in 2012.

“Back before the government took back control of the airport from GMR, the reason we gave was that the deal was bleeding the country’s economy. We were paying GMR to keep them here,” he told Minivan News at the time.

Masood said that despite “speculation from some people” concerning corruption by the former administration in signing the deal, the present government was not responsible for filing a case with the ACC.

He added that the government’s concerns over the deal had been in relation to the imposition of a US$25 Airport Development Charge (ADC) by GMR that was blocked by the Civil Court in 2011 after the then-opposition DQP filed a case on the matter.

The DQP, now part of President Waheed’s coalition government, attempted to block payment of the charge on the grounds that it was effectively a tax not approved by parliament.

In response, then MDP government agreed to deduct the ADC from the concession fees payable, while GMR later offered to exempt Maldives nationals from paying the ADC as it moved to appeal the verdict.

However, former President Mohamed Nasheed resigned under controversial circumstances on February 7, 2012 amidst a violent mutiny by elements of the police and military before the Civil Court verdict was appealed at the High Court.

Consequently, in the first quarter of 2012, Dr Waheed’s government received US$525,355 of an expected US$8.7 million, after the deduction of the ADC. That was followed by a US$1.5 million bill for the second quarter, after the ADC payable eclipsed the revenue due the government.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Comment: Can the World Bank end gender-based violence?

This week, the World Bank South Asia Office gathered government officials, civil society, parliamentarians, academics and journalists from around the region  in Kathmandu to discuss the issue of violence against women. This is the first time in the bank’s 60 year history that it has joined the global cause to end gender-based violence.

Violence against women has been long recognised as a serious issue on the global development agenda. The United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in 1993 and since then international community have unanimously agreed on gender-based violence as a serious human rights issue and public health priority.

However, despite the international spotlight and years of support from UN agencies to advance women’s rights, the number of women and girls killed, beaten or raped around the world remains astoundingly high.

South Asia world’s “most gender-insensitive region”

Opening the panel discussion on gender-based violence at the annual spring meeting in Washington last April, the World Bank Vice President for South Asia Isabel Guerrero said “we cannot keep silent” in the face of such “horrific acts”.

“We have to add our voices,” she emphatically noted.

She was referring to the gang rape of a 23 year-old in India and the shooting of 15 year-old Malala Yoosuf by extremists in Pakistan. Both incidents are a striking reminder of the pervasiveness of violence against women in the region.

According to a 2003 UNFPA report, South Asia is the world’s most “gender-insensitive” region with one in two woman found to be a victim of physical and sexual abuse in their homes. Other forms of violence are also rampant.

In India a woman is raped every 22 minutes, 22 women are killed each day in dowry related violence, and 50 million women are ‘missing’ due to sex selective abortions.

In Nepal, 7000 women and girls are trafficked for sex every year, while in Bangladesh every week more than 10 women are attacked with acid. In Pakistan more than 450 women and girls die every year in so-called ‘honour killings’ while in Sri Lanka, 78 percent of victims of grave sexual abuse are women and girls.

Because of these atrocious forms of violence, the South Asian women’s fundamental right to health and bodily integrity has been severely eroded. They live less, work less and even eat less.

According to an OXFAM 2004 report, gender based violence has severely limited women’s choices in practically all spheres of life and explains the uniformly poor gender-related development indices of South Asia in crucial sectors like health, nutrition, education, political participation, and employment.

Ending the pandemic levels of violence against women remains one of the key challenges in achieving development in the region which has more than 500 million people living in extreme poverty.

So can the World Bank’s entry into the fight to stop violence against women make a real difference?

The bank’s leverage

At the Kathmandu discussions, several participants asked the bank what it could do to stop violence against women.

Undoubtedly, the World Bank is one the most influential global players with the power and resources to prompt changes.

Tahseen Sayed, Nepal Country Manager for the World Bank, acknowledged the bank’s lack of presence on issues such as gender-based violence, and described the conference as an effort to show its determination to change this approach.

Sayed revealed that the bank would be “leveraging our role as one of the largest development partners with the countries we are working on, at the policy level”, in addition to advancing research to identify the economic and social costs of violence and expanding funding to related projects.

However, she stopped short of explaining how exactly the bank will use its leverage as a development partner.

“I cannot tell you how precisely we are going to do this,” Sayed pointed out.“But the fact that we have two of our vice presidents here, and managers here at the World Bank in this room, we will be taking this forward and see how best we can bring this into our discourse on the concrete areas we work on whether it is assistance to the countries, whether it is regional dialogue or global dialogue.”

This is a critical announcement as the World Bank, similar to the IMF, has the power to deny assistance to countries that do not meet its conditions or requirements.

Feryal Ali Gauhar, political economist and feminist writer from Pakistan believes that denying bank’s assistance to countries where the state is deliberately neglecting to protect the the most vulnerable groups can certainly be effective in creating change.

“When the bank is the agency to deny or grant a loan, it can use data provided by credible institutions, which would indicate whether the state is fulfilling its responsibility to end gender-based violence or protection of most marginalised and vulnerable groups in society.” Gauhar noted.

“If [the World Bank] can make decisions to extend or not extend loan on political issue, why cannot they exercise or exert that same kind of pressure for other loans they are extending?” she asked. “Certainly money would a ring a bell.”

Flogging in the Maldives

The Maldives, despite its admirable progress in the areas of education, health and reduction of poverty, still continues to be plagued with widespread physical and sexual abuse of women and children. One in three woman aged between 15-44 the victim of sexual or physical abuse.

There is little or no access to sexual and reproductive health education and as a result,, unsafe sex, early marriage, unwanted pregnancy, abortion and a lack of reproductive health rights are highly prevalent among young people. These realities are reflected in the gender indicators which show low female enrollment in the higher education system, double the rate of unemployment among females, and under-representation of women at a decision making level.

The World Bank recently granted US$10 million in aid to expand the higher education system in the Maldives. The decision came just weeks after Maldivian authorities were slammed for sentencing a 15 year-old rape victim to 100 lashes on charges of pre-marital sex under the country’s Sharia-based legal system..

Ninety percent of those flogged for fornication or adultery in the Maldives are women and underage girls. The United Nations and international human rights organisations have called for the Maldivian authorities to end this degrading form of punishment disproportionately meted to towards women and girls.

Other strict Sharia penalties such as capital punishment and amputation were suspended half a century ago.

But despite the calls from United Nations, human rights group such as Amnesty International and a global petition with over two million signatures, the Maldivian authorities have consistently shied away from changing their stance on imposing a moratorium on flogging. Much of this is due to their fear of voter backlash from rising conservative groups and their supporters in the country.

“It would be political suicide,” said a parliamentary member currently overseeing the revision of penal code, which includes flogging as a punishment. “We want to remove it as well. But, our hands are tied. Only public pressure can stop it.”

However, there is little visible support from the Maldivian public. In contrast, conservative groups are staging mass protests calling for flogging, beheading, stoning to death and amputation to be reinstated. The few who dare speak against these extremist views are slammed as “Laadheenee” (un-Islamic) and harassed online and on the streets.

So in this politically polarised climate, can a global player such as World Bank pull the plug on flogging in the Maldives by denying assistance to the country, unless it stops degrading and discriminatory practices such as flogging?

A civil society activist from Sri Lanka also highlights a recent case in which the world bank’s partner, International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a US$2.6 billion loan to Sri Lanka despite the widespread accusations of human rights abuses committed during its civil war.

“There are several reports and evidence of women and girls being raped during the conflict. Several more civilians, including children have been killed” he noted. “But the IMF still approved the loan, against the calls from human rights organisations because Sri Lankan government has done little to investigate these abuses and protect the rights of Tamil minority”

So can the bank, and IMF use its leverage as a donor to push negligent governments into taking meaningful action to guarantee the rights of women and other vulnerable groups?

A South Asian diplomat is skeptical.

“Unless we can shift the society’s view at grass roots level, no sanction is strong enough to stop violence against women,” he said, on condition on anonymity.

“If Maldivian public doesn’t want to stop flogging, how can the World Bank stop it?”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)