Day: December 26, 2013

Tsunami survivors still without permanent housing

President Abdulla Yameen has said 427 families who survived the devastating 2004 tsunami still require permanent housing.

During a speech on the occasion of the National Unity Day – commemorating the impact of the tsunami –  Yameen pledged to provide all families with housing in the next year.

“This government will provide housing for all those who were deprived of it with the tsunami, we will do it in 2014 according to the government’s manifesto” Yameen said.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM)  has said that a number of complaints were submitted to the commission by victims of the disaster in 2013. Among these were twelve cases related to damages to houses, of which five cases have been resolved.

Among them was a case involving the government asking people of Meemu Atoll Kolhufushi Island to repay the funds given for repairing damages to their houses.

The commission had also received complaints regarding lack of permanent shelter, compensation for damages caused to houses  and delays in housing projects.

HRCM President  Mariyam Azra has requested the government to take initiative in providing permanent shelter for those currently living in temporary shelters as soon as possible.

Speaking to the media today, commission member Dr Aly Shameem said he hopes the government works towards consolidating democracy and human rights by formulating an action plan as soon a possible.

“We haven’t seen the new government announcing any major policies to consolidate democracy and human rights yet, but the government have assured their full cooperation to the human rights commission,” Shameem said.

According to the Disaster Management Center, 242 individual victims of the disaster are still living in temporary shelters.

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Budget Committee proposes a MVR 17.96 billion state budget

The People’s Majlis Budget Committee has increased the proposed budget for 2014 to MVR17.96 billion (US$1.16 billion).

The committee added MVR432 million (US$ 28 million) to the MVR17.5 billion budget (US$ 1.1 billion) proposed by the Ministry of Finance and Treasury.

The addition includes MVR260.5 million (US$ 16.9 million) for Public Sector Investment Programmes (PSIP) and a MVR171.1 million (US$11 million) increase to the budget of independent institutions.

The budget deficit now stands at MVR1.3 billion (US$84.3 million). Recurrent expenditure accounts for over 70 percent of the budget.

Budget debate concluded today with MPs proposing an additional 35 revisions. These revisions and the state budget will be put to the vote next week.

Yesterday’s budget debate was suspended after opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MPs complained of lack of development funds for their constituencies. At the time the total budget stood at MVR17,811,234,380 (US$1.155 billion).

The Budget Committee met last night and added an additional MVR233.4 million (US$ 15.1 million) to the PSIP sector.

Budget Committee proceedings

On 17 December 2013, the Budget Committee added MVR786.6 million (US$51 million) to the proposed budget, resulting in a record MVR18.3 billion (US$1.19 billion) budget.

The increase was for development projects and increasing the budget of independent institutions.

On the same day, Minister of Finance and Treasury Abdulla Jihad said such a budget would be unmanageable and appealed the committee not to increase the proposed budget by more than MVR200 million (US$13 million).

The Budget Committee met again and reduced the budget to MVR17.8 billion. However, with MDP MPs’ objections on Wednesday, the budget was modified to MVR17.96 billion.

Recommendations

The Budget Committee met with Ministry of Finance and Treasury, the Ministry of Education, Aviation Security Command, the Maldives Associatoon for Construction Industries, the Maldives Association for Tourism Industries (MATI), the state’s independent institutions and local councils during its deliberations.

According to the budget report, several independent institutions said the Ministry of Finance had reduced their respective budgets and the allocated amounts were not enough to cover wages. The independent institutions also said the budget reductions would affect their ability to carry out their constitutional mandates.

The central bank Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) proposed a raft of recommendations including reducing state expenditure by cutting down the civil service and holding parliamentary, presidential, and local council elections at the same time.

The MMA also called on the Majlis to reduce recurrent expenditure to MVR10.2 billion (US$661 million) and reduce state debt.

Jabir’s recommendations

MP Abdulla Jabir proposed 14 recommendations, which were also included in the budget report.

These include developing a hospitality college to train Maldivian students in order to reduce the number of expatriates working in the tourism sector.

Jabir also proposed increasing state revenue through leasing state land for 99 years, leasing lagoons for residential and commercial purposes, establish free trade zones and introduce off-shore banking, develop aqua-culture and mariculture, develop yacht marinas and ports, establish a international finance center and opening up reclaimed land in Hulhumalé and other islands for development.

In addition, Jumhooree Party (MP) MP Gasim Ibrahim proposed increasing funds for the judiciary while MDP MP Hamid Abdul Ghafoor proposed reducing state expenditure by MVR2 billion.

MDP MP Ilyas Labeeb proposed that the government be prohibited from taking out loans with interest rates greater than seven percent, while MP Mohamed Aslam proposed that directors appointed to state owned enterprises be mandated to complete a director’s course.

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Government must reward those who helped win presidency: Yameen

President Abdulla Yameen has refuted allegations that his administration was creating a high number of political posts, but said the government must provide incentives for those who helped him win the presidency.

“We are not creating useless political positions just to appoint persons to them,” Yameen told the press at a Wednesday event in which former President Dr Mohamed Waheed and senior members of his party joined his ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM).

Yameen said members of the ruling coalition were only raised to political positions after the resignation or dismissal of those who currently filled the posts.

“What I want to tell all politicians and citizens regarding this matter is that in reality, it is the work of a united group that made it possible for us to get this presidential term for ourselves. And so even citizens will accept that this government must provide incentives for those who took part in that work and put in responsible work. That cannot be called partiality towards them,” Yameen said.

He went on to say that political positions must be filled with individuals who share the ideology of the government, and who will work to reach the same goals, adding that this must be inclusive of government coalition members.

Yameen pointed out that the coalition would not be complaining about failure to receive jobs if his government was increasing the number of existing positions.

However, he pledged to assign all promised positions under the coalition agreement to all the involved political parties.

He called on those who are currently filling political positions who are not part of the government coalition to leave their jobs and “make space” for those within it.

The current administration has 112 known political positions within the government; 15 cabinet ministers, 3 other ministerial rank positions, 33 appointees at the level of state minister, 50 appointees at the level of deputy minister and 11 high commissioners and ambassadors, as per the President’s Office website.

These 112 positions do not account for presidential appointees to the boards of state enterprises and other institutions.

Government coalition

Besides ruling party PPM, the government coalition consists of Maldives Development Alliance (MDA), Jumhooree Party (JP), Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP), Adhaalath Party (AP) and Gaumee Ihthihaadh Party (GIP).

With GIP leader former President Waheed and many of its senior members joining PPM on Wednesday, the party council has announced their decision to dissolve the party.

“I have not set any conditions in joining this party, and am doing so as I believe it will be most beneficial for the country at this time. I have neither asked for any political appointment nor have I asked for any share of the government,” Waheed said, speaking to media at Wednesday’s event.

Earlier in December, rumours arose that Adhaalath Party had left the government coalition, after the party announced it will be contesting in the upcoming local council and parliamentary elections separate from the coalition. The party later refuted the claims on December 8, asserting that although they will contest separately, the party fully supports the government. The party, along with a number of state and deputy minister posts, holds two cabinet seats.

On November 26, JP Leader Gasim Ibrahim said in a party rally that the government had thus far failed to allocate the promised state positions to the party, adding that he believed this could be due to the government being “hectically engaged in other government matters”.

“Our President Abdulla Yameen is an experienced man. Maumoon [Abdul Gayyoom, former President and Leader of PPM], too, is a person who has far more political experience than seen otherwise in the history of the Maldives. They will certainly not act in a way which will deprive us of benefits,” he said then.

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Civil Court staff arrested for stealing court’s laptops

A staff of the Civil Court has been arrested for stealing laptops from the court, local media have reported

According to CNM reported that the person was arrested after obtaining an arrest warrant and also police obtained a search warrant to search the person’s house.

According to CNM, police have recovered the stolen laptops.

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Research reveals lack of transparency in Maldives climate finance governance

The “Assessment of Climate Finance Governance in Maldives” report published by local NGO Transparency Maldives (TM) has revealed a number of concerns in climate finance governance.

The report indicates the Maldives has been pledged US$ 99,280,073 in grants, US$ 20,380,000 in loans and US$ 48,506,276 from multi-lateral and bilateral donors, for co-financing projects from 2008 through 2015.

Projects focus mainly on mitigation, adaptation and capacity building, and cover a wide range of areas from waste management, conservation, water resource management to education and development of renewable, clean and sustainable energy.

It was conducted as part of the “Climate Finance Integrity Programme” piloted by Transparency International in six countries to monitor the raising, managing and governance climate related finance.

TM noted the need for increased transparency in the decision making process, including the selection of islands for different projects to allowing civil sector groups to monitor and review priorities.

According to the report, project locations are prioritized by implementing agencies such as Ministry of Energy and Environment without the involvement of donor agencies.

As the criteria for island selection is not visible in any records, “there is a strong incentive for political maneuvering in island selection,” the report said. This issue is not specific to climate change projects but seems to be the general trend, it added.

Transparency Maldives has proposed the establishment of a clearly identified and comprehensive climate policy and strategy to “ensure selection of projects is aligned to strategic goals and not to personal or political gain”.

The NGO also took issue with the constant reorganization of decision making bodies, their members, hierarchy and mandates, arguing “in cases of institutional changes it is important to disclose the hierarchy of decision-making processes, mandates and who is responsible for overseeing the work of each committee.”

The report also noted “serious concerns” in the availability of accurate and up-to-date information on projects and their progress. The public is said to have no access to a comprehensive list of climate projects at present.

A government website isles.egov.mv created in 2009 to increase transparency is still being managed by the President’s Office instead of the central monitoring agency, the Office of Programmes and Projects (OPP), as planned. Further, the website is not regularly updated, the report said.

Discrepancies in available financial information of projects from different sources was also reported. “It remains a challenge for ordinary citizens to gain access to information from the Government of Maldives with many restrictions included in accessing information,” the reported said.

Another issue highlighted was insufficient external monitoring of climate change projects, mainly because of the shortage of information reported to the OPP.

Due to this, the reporting of monitoring and evaluation of climate projects is done solely by the implementing agencies such as the ministry.

Donors must encourage project reporting to a national monitoring agency to increase transparency and public access to such information, the TM said.

Weakness in oversight was also mentioned in the report, referring mainly to the Auditor General’s Office (AGO) and Anti-corruption Commission (ACC).

Donors have limited access to some AGO documents due to language barriers, while implementation of recommendations in audit reports are not followed up until the next audit, the report said.

No complaints concerning climate finance have been lodged to or investigated by ACC, however, the ACC has provided recommendations on instances where inefficiencies could risk corruption. But the report found the  ACC also does not monitor the implementation of their recommendations.

The assessment highlighted that it was “not clearly evident” whether the parliament reviewed or analyzed reports submitted by independent institution or the OPP, as no such reviews have been published.

TM has proposed a number of recommendations for specific parties involved in climate finance governance, and plans to conduct a more in-depth governance assessment of the Ministry of Environment and Energy – the institution which receives the largest portion of climate finance projects.

The report can be downloaded from here.

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