Tag: expat

Two MNDF officers accused of robbery return to work

Two Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) officers facing charges of robbing expatriates in uniform last year have returned to work following the conclusion of their investigation.

MNDF Spokesperson Colonel Abdul Raheem told newspaper Haveeru that the officers had been assigned duty and that their investigation was concluded.

The cases have now been forwarded to the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) to be tried at the Criminal Court. If either officer is found guilty, Raheem said the MNDF would take “strict action”.

On August 29 last year, police arrested the three MNDF officers accused of entering an expatriate residence in Male’ in army uniform and robbing the Bangladeshi workers with threats of violence.

The MNDF officers were identified as Lance Corporal Ali Ibrahim, 26, of Lhaviyani Hinnavaru Aaramuge, and Private Hussein Mahir, 23, of Laamu Mundhoo Finifenmaage. They were taken into custody with the stolen cash.

Following the arrests, the MNDF said it was “working with the police to take the harshest legal action possible” against the errant officers.

According to local media reports at the time, the three officers robbed expatriate workers living in Maafanu Pink Rose on Fareedhee Magu on a number of occasions during Ramadan last year.

Newspaper Haveeru reported that the uniformed officers entered the house on three consecutive nights and took Rf30,000 (US$1,945), Rf24,000 (US$1,556) and Rf12,000 (US$778) respectively.

The two officers were reportedly confronted by members of the public on the third night, who informed the police.

MNDF Spokesperson Colonel Abdul Raheem did not respond to Minivan News at time of press.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Indian national commits suicide in police custody, High Commission raises expatriate concerns

Investigations are continuing into the suicide yesterday of a 39 year-old Indian national in police custody, while the Indian High Commission today raised concerns about the treatment of some expatriates in the Maldives.

The deceased, identified by the Indian High Commission as Scariakutty Kalarikkal Yoyakim, was being held in custody on the island of Dhoonidhoo for the alleged assault of another couple with whom he had been living. Yoyakim had been employed by Crown Company and was living in the same property as the couple, as well as his wife, according to the High Commission. He is also thought to have been in the country with his son and brother.

Police Spokesperson Ahmed Haneef told Minivan News that the man was believed to have taken his life yesterday evening at about 6:50pm, though further details were unavailable at present as investigations were continuing.

Haneef said that the man may have used something to tie around his neck that would allow him to commit suicide inside the cell, but would not confirm any details until police concluded their report.

‘’Today at about 1:00pm in the afternoon his body was sent back to his country in compliance with a request from the deceased’s family,’’ he said.

Condolence gathering

The Indian High Commission confirmed that it had held a condolence gathering for Yoyakim at 5:00pm today, with 50 people in attendance. The meeting included prayers as well as a minute’s silence for the deceased, according to organisers.

A spokesperson for the commission told Minivan News that it was unaware of the nature of the man’s suicide, though the Commission understood police investigations into the death were continuing.

When contacted about the incident, Indian High Commissioner Dynaneshwar Mulay was unable to provide any additional details regarding the case. However, he did raise some concerns over the general treatment of Indian expatriates in the Maldives by the country’s police and judiciary.

Mulay claimed that alongside concerns about the treatment of some Indian expatriates in relation to the law, there were significant issues relating to “basic human rights” that needed to be addressed concerning expatriates from countries including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Mulay’s comments follow an attack last week on a Indian resort worker, who was reported to have been attacked with a hammer and mugged while staying in a hotel in Male’.  The attack was allegedly committed by a former employee of the same resort.

The victim, identified by India’s Express News Service as 24 year-old Ramakrishnan Sadanandan from Thiruvananthapuram, was reportedly attacked at 2:30pm on March 31 while staying at a local guest house in the capital.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Two expats arrested on Innamaadhoo for showing pornography to nine year olds

Two expatriates working on the island of Innamaadhoo in Raa Atoll have been arrested on charges of sexually abusing two young girls.

Deptuty Chair of the Island Council Abdulla Shafeeq told Minivan News today that both expatriates were Bangladeshi nationals and that they have been living on the island for almost a year.

“The two expats showed pornographic materials to the girls – the girls would be only nine years of age,” Shafeeq said. “One man is 24 and the other is 30 years-old.”

Shafeeq said the abuse had been going on for some time, and the first incident occurred about a month ago.

“But yesterday at school, the girls told their classmate about this and then the parents found out,” he said.

Shafeeq said the two men were then summoned to the Council Office.

“Four islanders went to their place to get them and they refused and attacked the four,” Shafeeq said, adding that later a confrontation between the islanders and the two men also occurred while they were inside the council office.

He said that the two men were later taken away by police.

“The police arrested them and we received no further information,” Shafeeq said.

He said that the two expats have been working on the island in the construction industry.

Local media cited an islander as stating that the two girls were threatened using a knife, however Shafeeq could not confirm the allegations.

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said police are currently investigating the case.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Foreign hotel and resort workers concerned over financial changes

Expatriate resort workers have expressed confusion over new regulations restricting monthly remittances to 100 percent of workers’ salaries, which they fear may may leave them unable to take supplementary income, such as tips and service charges, out of the country.

The government has said the decision, published in mid-May in the government gazette, was intended to reduce the amount of money sent overseas by those working in the country illegally, either without a work permit or by taking jobs ‘on the side’.

Workers exceeding the limit, and organisations providing the transfer facility, would face a fine.

However, in many of the country’s resorts, service charges and ‘unofficial’ tips can amount to up to 70 percent of a worker’s total income.

“If the transfers are limited to salaries then the tips and service charges will be considered illegal money,” one foreign worker, a guest relations officer (GRO), told Minivan News. “For me that is 75 percent of my income.”

The GRO added that due to the isolation of some resort properties, workers would be unable to reach a bank every month to send their income home.

“There is one ferry a week [to an island with a bank], but not my home branch. To go to Male’ the flight costs US$200 – I can’t transfer money every month, and I can’t spend all my money in the Maldives,” she said.

A lack of information outside local media reports in Dhivehi meant that many foreign staff were in the dark over the pending changes.

“Nobody is sure what is going on. This [lack of confidence] may encourage people to take their money out of the system altogether,” she predicted.

Several foreign workers Minivan News spoke to at a hotel near Male’ also expressed confusion and frustration over what they feared could be a financial impracticality to continuing to work in the Maldives. They noted that the hotel was to begin paying all staff in rufiya, following the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA)’s recent announcement that it would enforce transactions in the country’s legal tender.

Minivan News contacted a range of authorities dealing with monetary policy, but was unable to get a clear indication of what the regulations would mean for foreign workers.

State Minister for Finance Ahmed Assad and Minister for Economic Development Mahmoud Razee both said they were not in a position to clarify the matter and referred Minivan News to the MMA.

Assad suggested that while the Ministry published official notices in Dhivehi, employers had a duty to keep their foreign employees informed of the implications of any changes to policy.

Assistant Manager of the MMA’s Monetary Policy and Research Division, Ibrahim Ameer, told Minivan News that he understood the regulations were currently pending with the Ministry of Human Resources and that income from resort workers would be taken into consideration, however he noted claims in media reports on the regulation that only basic salaries could be remitted.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Human Resources meanwhile referred Minivan News to Deputy Minister Hussain Ismail, who was not responding at time of press.

Head of the Tourism Employee Association of the Maldives (TEAM) and Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Ahmed Easa told Minivan News that the organisation had met with the MMA when the regulations were being drafted and that he understood workers would be able to send their full incomes overseas on presentation of their work visa to the bank.

“The idea is to stop illegal workers from remitting money,” he said. “I think it is tied to income rather than salary, as long as the proper documents are provided. It should not be a problem so long as workers have a work permit. That’s what I have been told, and I haven’t received any complaints yet.”

However, earlier reports on the regulation have suggested it would encompass not just illegal workers, but those taking on ‘unofficial’ extra work – a common practice for many of Male’s expatriate workers, some of whom are paid as little as US$70 a month for full-time construction work. In many cases, this is despite reported promises of salaries of up to US$400 by unscrupulous employment brokers, who charge poor and illiterate people in countries such as Bangladesh fees of between US$3000-4000 to come and work in the Maldives.

The dollar crisis in the Maldives has brought to the fore the remitting of salaries by expatriate workers.  In a recent report, Ameer from the MMA noted that “each expatriate worker will on average remit US$100 per month to their countries. That is US$8 million per month and US$96 million a year. This is an amount that can and should be mitigated.”

Easa told Minivan News that the Human Resources Ministry, “to be honest, has nothing to explain. The Maldives can’t afford this, and we have to have rules to stop the existing open environment.”

The Immigration Department meanwhile reported that the number of expatriates in the country would reach 100,000 by June, after increasing by 10,000 in just three months. The report came as the Ministry of Human Resources published regulation permitting the recruitment of domestic servants without a quota.

The payment of salaries to foreign workers in rufiya is also a concern raised by foreign workers, concerned at their inability to convert the local currency to dollars.

“It may be difficult at this time, but the MMA is reinforcing a law from the early 1980s,” Easa noted. “All these years the MMA has not enforced the law. Right now we have a shortage of foreign exchange, and [expatriates] might face difficultly for a couple of months. But the country doesn’t have a choice.”

TEAM’s Vice President Mauroof Zakir acknowledged receiving concerns from resort workers regarding payment in rufiya.

“We received complaints where workers wanted salary in dollars in instances where the business is earning dollars,” he said, adding that this was already the case for many executive staff who had money paid into accounts outside the Maldives.

Furthermore, Zakir noted complaints from staff who’s wages were now being paid at a rate of Rf 10.42 to the dollar – the minimum rate following the government’s float of the rufiya within a 20 percent band of a pegged Rf12.85 – despite bank rates sitting at Rf 15.42.

“They don’t know the rate at which management is getting dollars,” he said. “I think it is a big concern that the government is not doing anything to raise awareness [for expatriate workers], apart from releasing statements to local media in Dhivehi.”

During a recent interview with Finance Minister Ahmed Inaz, Minivan News questioned the enforcement of rufiya at a time when there was doubt as to whether this could be exchanged into dollars, and the impact this would have on confidence in the Maldivian economy.

“We believe the market is currently unstable because of the changes we have brought, and that these changes will take three months for the various variables to work,” Inaz acknowledged.

“There will be a lot of low confidence and instability, and that will not only be felt by the expatriates. All our imports and consumables, medicine, education – is imported. But we are confident we can get through this.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Expatriate enrollment in pension scheme to be delayed three years

President Nasheed has ratified an amendment to the Pension Act delaying the bill’s applicability to expatriate workers by three years.

The original pension act required expatriate workers to be enrolled in the Maldives Retirement Pension Scheme within 12 months.

The pension act has now been published in the government’s gazette.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Lale English teacher resorted to begging, sleeping in fishmarket

When English teacher John Campbell accepted a job at Lale Youth International School two years ago, he had no idea he would be leaving the country with scarcely more than the shirt on his back and an expatriate horror story far removed from the picturesque experience of a resort worker.

At one stage in December 2010, penniless, starving, robbed, waiting for the school to pay his remaining salary and unable to get a response from any authorities, he was forced to sleep in the capital’s fish market for seven nights before being rescued by an immigration official.

At night, Campbell would sit in the doorways of shops and read by the light through the windows. Famished, he eventually resorted to begging outside Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH).

“It was my first experience of begging,” says the Australian national, who has 10 years experience as an English teacher and a wife who currently lives in Thailand.

“I hadn’t eaten for six days, but people gave me enough for a coffee. The humiliation was better than starving, but it was not something I want to repeat.”

He was eventually found by an immigration official and taken to the immigration lock-up, where he was fed and allowed to come and go as he pleased. Later, he was moved to another building that was being refurbished –

“I don’t think it was official,” he says, praising the department worker for the help he received.

Campbell says his problems began when the Turkish-run international school failed to pay him one month’s salary on completion of his contract. He claimed that the school also required foreign staff to initially pay a US$1200 “passport deposit”.

“The school didn’t want to pay the end of my contract. I had a flight on November 16, 2010, and they made an offer of US$300 but only if I signed a statement agreeing to make no further claims against the school.”

It was common practice, Campbell said, to give departing teachers a cheque in rufiya shortly before their departure, knowing they would be unable to change the money – and then offer a significantly lower amount of dollars.

Unlike other teachers Minivan News spoke to, Campbell took the cheque, “but the bank would not change the money.”

He left the country and flew to Thailand to visit his wife, and attempted to change the cheque there. Banks were uninterested and the best “unofficial” rate he could get was Rf 40 to the dollar – more than three times the pegged rate of Rf 12.85. He changed enough to survive, and returned to the Maldives to pursue his remaining salary.

Prior to leaving he had sought to press his case with assorted authorities in Male’, particularly the Education Ministry and the Labour Department.

“Five emails to the Labour Ministry and two handwritten letters delivered personally, but they refused to acknowledge that any letters had been received,” he said. “I even tried writing letters to the President’s Office.”

Unable to penetrate the Maldives byzantine bureaucracy and without the contacts to do so, Campbell met a Maldivian man who agreed to help him in exchange for Rf 500 a week. When Campbell visited Thailand on conclusion of his contract, the man also arranged for the storage of his possessions.

When he returned to continue pressing his case, “I discovered that he had taken everything I had. My clothes, shoes, paperwork, sound system, surfboard, tools, materials, fittings – everything I owned apart from my boat.”

The small hand-made sailing vessel was Campbell’s hobby during his spare time in the Maldives, and was made from 90 percent recycled materials.

“I’ve been boat building since I was a little kid, I built the first when I was 11 years old – the first that was big enough to use. In high school, I would buy boats that had been written off and restore them to resell. Then I started making surfboards – it was good money.”

His aim was go on weekend sailing trips to local surf spots – although he adds that the real enjoyment was the relaxing focus of constructing it.

“I had finished it the day before I left [to Thailand]. I left it on the shore near the Hulhumale’ ferry terminal, after towing it up the beach and tying it up. Two weeks later, I found it a few hundred metres from the ferry terminal, smashed to pieces on the rocks and stripped of all steel fittings.”

After his possessions were stolen Campbell went to police and gave the name, home address and two telephone numbers of the man he claimed had taken everything he owned. Nothing happened – “at least 20 people told me they’ve seen him around Hulhumale’.”

“It felt like I was seen as an acceptable target. I lost everything – for the first 14 days all I had was a ticket back to Australia.”

Unwilling to give up on his possessions or the money owed him by the school, Campbell sought a refund for the ticket from the Malaysian airlines office.

That money lasted two weeks, “and then I had nowhere to sleep, no support, and nothing happening [with my case].”

Unwilling to exploit the hospitality of his hosts at a local guest house without being able to pay them back, he moved onto the streets.

“I had no money left to pay for the hotel, and while they would have let me stay I didn’t want to rack up a debt I couldn’t pay,” he said.

Lale Youth International was not responding to calls when Minivan News called to corroborate Campbell’s story, and Biz Atoll, the Maldivian company that holds the agreement to run the school in conjunction with the Turkish group, requested Minivan News to call back later and then did not answer the phone.

However, a source familiar with the school and its employment of foreign staff told Minivan News that the Campbell’s treatment was not unusual.

“In one year, the contract was changed 2-3 times. The school was supposed to pay one month’s salary after completion of one year, but it seems they were not willing to do that,” the source said.

“They did it to a Sri Lankan boy who worked there – he begged for his salary in dollars, before leaving to Sri Lanka, and they made him buy it from them at a rate of Rf 14. He paid because he had to.”

Campbell, the source attested, “was a very good teacher” – and one of the last native-English speakers to leave the school.

“There were problems in the contract that worked to the advantage of the school,” Campbell says, “such as clauses that said in the event of any contention between staff and the employer, the employer’s opinion counted. Anyone who could read English would understand the contract was untenable.”

Campbell’s sister eventually paid for his flight out of the country.

“Why not the thief’s family?” he told Minivan News, from Thailand. “It seems I’ve made a large donation to the Maldives economy. I had to make a citizens arrest of the thief because the Hulhumale’ police couldn’t find him after six weeks of looking. I had to re-seize my property by myself because they were too busy at 6:00am in the morning to accompany me. I retrieved about 25 percent of it, but not the money stolen as well. Afterwards they were very keen to get me out of the country.”

“All the difficulties were created by the school’s refusal to pay on time, and having to stay and fight them then return and fight again, with no one holding them accountable – Maldives government departments are the worst case of ‘jobs for the boys’. It cost me more than anything, and I’m left in debt after two years.”

Minivan News reported on Lale Youth International School in May last year, after the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) launched an investigation into claims children were being abused.

Later that year, the Criminal Court found the former principal, Turkish national Serkan Akar, guilty of assaulting children and sentenced him to pay a Rf200 (US$14) fine.

Serkan had denied the charges against him, which included strangling and whipping a child with a belt.

After the sentencing and the release of the HRCM report, the government briefly discussed repossessing the school from the Turkish consortium.

Former Education Minister Mustafa Luthfy told Minivan News that the government eventually decided “to continue with the Turkish group, following certain amendments to the agreement and proposed changes. They brought in some changes, but they still need to do more.”
Addendum: Following publication of this article, Principal of Lale Youth International School Mehmet Akif sent Minivan News a letter in which he claimed that the school had fulfilled its contractual obligations to John Campbell. The letter has been published in accordance with the school’s right-of-reply.
Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Eight men rob expats, collide with coconut tree

Police are investigating eight men who allegedly robbed five Bangladeshi farm workers of Rf8000 (US$622) on Fonadhoo in Laamu Atoll, before attempting to flee in a car.

One of the suspects was seriously injured when the car hit a coconut tree during a high speed police chase. Police arrested two of the men, one of whom was admitted in Laamu Atoll Gan regional hospital, and the other who is to be transfered to Male’ with a serious elbow injury.

Fonadhoo police station is now investigating the case.

Island Chief of Fonadhoo Ahmed Yousuf said the men were not islanders from Fonadhoo, but were travelling from Mundhu in Laamu Atoll.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Fight between coworkers ends with man hit by log

A man was hit with a log during a fight between a group of expatriate workers on the island of Kela in Haa Dhaalu atoll early this morning.

Police said a squad was sent to investigate a disturbance caused by four Bangladeshi men, who were working together.

Three of the men were arrested, while the injured man was taken to the local health centre for medical treatment.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)