Staff at several government departments, including the fisheries ministry and the attorney general’s office, have gone on strike in protest at the restoration of salaries for only some areas of government.
Staff a some of the other ministries, including the tourism ministry, are rumoured to be deciding whether they should take part.
Yesterday salaries were restored for staff at the independent commissions, courts, parliament and the judicial services. The president announced over the weekend that the remaining civil servant salaries will be restored in April if the country’s economy has stabilised.
A senior staff member from the attorney general’s office told Minivan News that more than 40 people working at the office were participating the strike, and would continue to do so until their received the restored salaries.
“We will come to the office every day, but we won’t be doing any work,” he said, claiming that the strikers were just trying to get their legal rights.
A senior staff member from the fisheries ministry confirmed that most of the civil servants at the ministry were on strike, including the management.
Some of the ministry’s senior staff had threatened legal action against the strikers, he said.
”We are working legally to get our rights,” he claimed, explaining that civil servants were present at the office but were refusing to work.
A civil servant working in the tourism ministry said staff were planning to sent a letter to the Civil Service Commission (CSC) about the issue.
”We will decide to strike or not depending on the answer we get,” she said.
The economic ministry said that all of its staffs were present and all of them were working “as normal.” A staff member said that they were not planning to strike.
Spokesman for the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Ibrahim Shareef said that no legal action could be taken against the civil servants protesting.
”It is a right for the civl servants according to the law,” Shareef said, but added that the DRP had not yet decided whether to support the strike.
CSC spokesman Mohamed Fahmy Hassan said the CSC had yet to discuss the issue in detail but was currently “definitely not calling for strikes”, and was instead trying to solve the dispute through administrative and legal means.
“We have stated very openly that if we cannot solve it administratively, we will take the issue to court until we get a verdict,” he said.
Strikes would disrupt the services provided by the ministries and inconvenience the public, he added.
“I think the fact that some salaries have been restored has made it harder to persuade civil servants that the country has a financial problem. It’s very unfair what’s happened.”
State Minister for Finance Ahmed Assad said that civil servants were entitled to strike for their rights.
”We have not decided to change any of our decisions yet,” Assad said, refusing to answer more questions “as it is too early to say anything.”
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the thing the public will notice is that the ministries carry on working just fine without these civil servants, who do nothing but surf facebook all day anyways
According to MDP and Voter s who have casted there vote against Maumoon should not even speak of current salary reduction. " Not Even a Laari has been reduced" called Anni at press conference. To my knowledge its true. Go home and sleep well and tight up ur cash till end opf December 2010... Anni will increase salary and will demand you guys to vote him on next presidential election. And you will again vote... But remember you have another term to run around Male' and all other places..... because of low salary and high expenditure bill..
what percentage of civil servants term up to work on any given day (on a normal day, not a strike day)? I heard sometimes up to 40% of ministry staff are ill in any one day... they take our money and sleep at home. now they are trying to crash the economy with their greedy demands for wages. and maumoon who broke the economy with his stupid policies is egging them on. the irony.
When you talk of government departments strike over salaries. Your are talking about less than 100 civil servants out 30,000.
The heading of this article looks like a joke.
Ye right!
Maldivians r deaf and dumb! Don they understand wot the situation is like? Maumoon did gud! He crumbled the country n nw sitin home! Ppl listen to ur new president. If any1 can do u gud its him. Pls don barkin like dogs witot known the truth. Anni v love u!
The truth is, Civil servants salary has NOT been decreased since this government came to power. Even today with the 15% decrease, they still have a higher salary than what they got on NOV 08. What is wrong with these people? Now that they work till 12pm, the government should deduct their salaries and pay for the time they are working. There are way too many useless civil servants in Maldives. This is draining all our income.
I think its high time the govt dismiss these unwanted 'servants' and take in new batch to run the offices.
Whats new about Civil Servants turning up at office and not working. If this is what they call strike, then the larger part of civil service have been on strike for the last 30 years and more. The normal day for many civil servants used to be; come to office, go for tea, surf the net, go to collect child from school, and start work at about 1.30 pm and end work at 5.30 pm. So of course at the end of the month they collect their well earned wages as well as overtime pay. If one compares private sector salaries and civil service salaries with the same qualifications, work hours, and work load you will find the Civil Servants get paid much more. GET REAL. Having said this I salute the minority of the well deserving, hard working civil servants.
oh my, no wonder my facebook so boring today...:( get back to office u bums...heh
Less than 10 people, most of them were not civil servants had a protest in front of Finance Ministry yesterday .The photo attached with this news article is not a photo of the protest, but a photo of another protest held in front of Civil Service Commission months ago.
Minivan news is misleading the whole story.
yes civil servants do no work except surf the web. what about the majlis. who gets 60,000 rufiyaa. what do they talk about in the meetings. just nonsense. do they deserve 60,000 rufiyaa. are they working for the interest of the country.
now comes the civil service commission. they could resolved this issue easily. but they want the civil service to come to a halt.
Aishath well said. Last 3 to 4 days I have been trying to contact a senior official (a CIVIL SERVANT) from the Planning Ministry. No answer, no call back at all - shows the typical irresponsible attitude of a typical civil servant.
And the nerve to demand higher wages!
government must give the salaries to civil service...............or if they dont president must resign