DhiFM journalist Qufthaq Ajeer had spent two weeks trying to obtain the information for a piece on housing projects.
But today the frustrated reporter launched a one man protest against the Housing Ministry and bureaucratic inaction, by setting up camp in the ministry’s lobby and refusing to leave until the information was provided.
‘’I have been trying to get this information for two weeks,” he told Minivan News. “Every day they say tomorrow or the next day and it keeps going that way, so I thought I would try a new way today.”
“I decided to stay inside the office until either the police came to throw me out, or the Deputy Minister Mohamed Faiz came to provide me the information I need.”
The ambush was necessary because Faiz “never responds to calls”, he added.
When the journalist began protesting in the lobby, Housing Ministry staff tried to promise him he “would get the information tomorrow.”
“I am not confident with their ‘tomorrow’,” said Qufthaq. “I am trying a new way to see how it goes.’’
He waited inside the Housing Ministry’s lobby after the ministry closed and the staff had left the building.
An hour later, State Minister for Housing Akuram Kamluddeen arrived and disclosed the information Qufthaq had requested two weeks earlier.
Media Cordinator for the Housing Ministry, Mohamed Rashad, said he had “only learned today” that a journalist was trying to reach the deputy minister.
“The busy schedule and all must have been a reason for the long delay,’’ he said. “If the media unit had known about it before, he would have received the information he needed.’’
Bureaucratic inaction and a lack of cooperation from the civil service is the latest in a series of complaints by the Maldivian media.
Recently a Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation (MNBC) journalist was barred from entering the Criminal Court for a hearing.
A journalist from Villa Television (VTV) also complained that Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) parliamentary group leader and MP Moosa ‘Manik’ obstructed him from interviewing another MP.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), acting on information received from the Maldives Journalist Association (MJA), earlier this week issued a statement expressing alarm at the “increasing hostile actions against independent media in the Maldives.”
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