Tag: male

Morning Star crew told to sell ship or be stranded “forever”: Mallinks Managing Director

The owner of a Maldivian ship detained in the Indian Port City of Kochi for the last five months has told the crew they must sell the vessel or they be stranded in India “forever”.

Crew members aboard the MV Morning Star have been left stranded in the country after the ship they were towing from the Maldives – MV Sea Angel – sank in Indian waters.

Following the sinking of the vessel, the Indian Environmental Authority launched a probe into the incident and detained the MV Morning Star, local media reported.

According to the Transport Authority, the crew have also gone without pay for the last five months and are relying on a local union in India to provide them with food.

MV Morning Star’s owner, Managing Director of Mallinks Pvt Ltd Ibrahim Rasheed, told Minivan News that the crew and captain of the MV Morning Star would not be allowed to sail out of the port until the sunken vessel is salvaged, in accordance to a ruling by the Indian Judiciary.

“There is nothing I can do now. It is up to the insurance company to salvage the sunken ship, but they are saying they will not do that. I don’t have the money to do it myself, I am not the World Bank.

“I have told the captain to sell the ship as it is the only option now. With the money they can pay the crew salary and return to the Maldives. If they don’t they will be stuck in India for 3 years or five years or forever because I cannot afford to pay their return,” Rasheed said.

Despite Rasheed’s proposal, Transport Authority Chairman Abdul Rasheed Nafiz claimed that to “simply sell the ship” was not an easy procedure as there are regulations that have to be adhered to with Indian and Maldivian maritime authorities.

“This is a very sad story for the crew. I have spoken to their families and they are relying on them [the crew] to provide money for children’s books, rent and bills. However, [the crew] have not received any payment,” Nafiz told Minivan News.

“[The Transport Authority] are working with our legal team to determine what type of action can be taken against the owners of the ship. These people are blaming the insurance company, then the insurance company are blaming the owners; it goes around in a circle.

Both of the vessels owned by Mallinks Pvt Ltd are insured by Allied Insurance, according to Rasheed.

Under the insurance policy, Rasheed claimed that Allied Insurance was required to salvage the sunken vessel, and that it was their failure to do so that has kept the crew unpaid in India for so long.

“We had fully insured both ships. The insurance company gave us a wage policy and in the policy they have written, ‘within 40 days we have to sail the vessels’, which we did.

“The insurance company needs to take responsibility, but they are saying no, so I will file a case at court,” Rasheed alleged.

MV Morning Star had been towing MV Sea Angel to a port in India for it to be scrapped, however just eight miles from Kochi, the 26 metre vessel began to sink.

According the ship’s captain, Hussain Ali, the crew were becoming “more and more depressed” with the situation and are yet to receive any help from the Maldivian government.

Rasheed said he had paid the crew two out of the five months they had been in India, claiming that he did not have the money to pay the full amount.

He further claimed it had been Ali’s fault that the MV Sea Angel had sunk, and that Indian courts had declared the sinking was due to Ali acting with “negligence” and “harassment of navigation”.

“At the end of all of this, this is my loss. my ship will be lost because of the captain. It was his fault the MV Sea Angel sank,” Rasheed claimed.

“The captain has already filed a case against me with the International Transport Workers Federation,” Rasheed added.

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MVR 312,928 on phone expenses “not unreasonable”: former Environment Minister

Former Minister of Housing and Environment Mohamed Aslam has claimed the MVR 312,928 (US$ 20,254) spent from the Ministry’s budget on his mobile phone expenses between June 2009 and August 2011 was not “unreasonable”.

The findings, part of an audit report on the Housing and Environment Ministry for 2011, also show that MVR 25,200 was spent by the ministry on a staff breakfast function held during Ramadan in 2010, local media reported.

Aslan’s phone expenses, as revealed by the audit report, equate to MVR 12,035 (US$ 779) per month for the 26 months between June 2009 and August 2011.

The former Minister told Minivan News today (January 17) that his phone bills were so high due to his position requiring him to “frequently” leave the country.

“I happened to be the minister who travelled most frequently and there have been times where I have been out of the country for weeks at a time.

“On those occasions I had to take calls from overseas, I had to answer them and roaming is very expensive. In that regard, the total cost was not unreasonable,” Aslan claimed.

The former minister alleged that the foreign minister, who was the person who travelled “almost” as much, would have similar phone bills.

Aslan claimed that ministry staff had “told” him to change his billing address and kept on paying the phone bills.

“It was never brought to anyone’s attention that it was illegal. When the bill is to be paid the ministry sends a voucher to the Ministry of Finance and they pay it.

“There is a budget for phone expenses. When it came to my attention [that the phone bills were high] I tried to reduce the amount of calls I would take,” Aslan said.

When asked whether he used a different phone for personal calls, the former minister stated: “I only ever carried one phone.”

Audit report

The audit report of the housing and environment ministry for 2011 further states that the amount of MVR 25,200 (US$1364) was spent on a staff break-fast function held during Ramadan of 2010, local media reported.

The money spent on the function came from budgets allocated to ministry meetings and seminars, the audit report noted.

“We advise that no expense be made in contradiction to the State Financial Regulation. We also advise that that authorisation from the Ministry of Finance be sought, as stated in the State Financial Regulation point 4.06 (c), prior to making an expense that will directly benefit the staff,” the report stated according to local media.

The audit report further highlights that the ministry had spent a total of MVR 501 million (US$32.4 million) in loans for projects not included in the parliament-approved budget.

The auditor general said that expenses not stated in the parliament-approved budget is a violation of the constitution, public finance act and the state financial regulation, recommending that action should be taken against parties responsible for the violations, local media reported.

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Deadline to seek foreign experts for CoNI investigation extended

The deadline to seek two foreign experts for investigation into the report of Commission of National Inquiry (CoNI) has been extended, local media has reported.

Parliament’s Committee on Oversight of the Government decided to extend the deadline until Sunday, as proper procedure was not followed when the announcement was published on the website by the parliament office, local media stated.

Committee Chairperson and Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Ali Waheed was quoted by local media as saying that the announcement, written in English, had been published in the Dhivehi section of the parliament website rather than in the English section.

“I am concerned about what the employees of the parliament office have done. It’s not acceptable that an announcement that should have been published in the English section was published in the Dhivehi section. We have to pay attention to this,” Waheed was quoted as saying in Sun Online.

Committee members said that individuals interested in applying for assisting in the investigation of the CoNI report did not have any information on how to apply for this post, local media reported.

The announcement seeks two experts who have experience working in world legislative assemblies, who are willing to work with the committee members for two weeks.

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Maldivian prisoners in foreign jails cannot be transferred home due to lack of proper laws

Eleven Maldivian citizens are currently serving prison sentences in foreign countries because the Maldives lacks the proper laws to transfer them back home, local media has reported.

An official from the Foreign Ministry was quoted in local media as saying that the Ministry is “gravely concerned” about the number of people detained in foreign jails, and that it is working on transferring them to jails in the Maldives.

The official stated that a prisoner transfer agreement had been signed with Sri Lanka and India, however the lack of proper laws in regard to prisoner transfer made the process difficult.

“We have worked hard for such a law. It is however, a thing for the Attorney General. We can send away the foreigners in our jails, but to transfer a Maldivian to Maldives, we lack the proper law on how the person may carry out the sentence.

“There are numerous people who we have not been able to transfer because of the lack of such a law. If not, we can transfer them to Maldives,” the official was quoted as saying in Sun Online.

The foreign Ministry, as reported by local media, said that Maldivian prisoners are currently in jails in Syria, Italy, Sri Lanka for drug related cases, one in a Hong Kong prison in relation to a murder case, one in Chennai for an unknown reason and two people arrested in Trivadndrum on drug charges.

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Thilafushi Corporation Limited incurs MVR 650 million loss from reclamation project

Thilafushi Corporation Limited (TCL) has incurred MVR 650 million (US$ 42 million) worth of losses over the Thilafushi reclamation project, local media reports.

Speaking at a Parliament Public Accounts Sub-Committee, attorney representing TCL Mazlan Rasheed was quoted as saying that if the project had been completed, the company would have earned US$400 million.

The loss was incurred due to the Heavy Load company not reclaiming the agreed 152 hectares of land within the granted six month period, Sun Online reported.

According to Rasheed, Heavy Load had only reclaimed 32 hectares and that a further US$1 million needs to spent on levelling the reclaimed ground.

The Thilafushi reclamation project was awarded to Heavy Load for a sum of US$21 million (MVR 323 million).

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No intention to reverse decision to charge 15 year-old with fornication: PG’s office

The Prosecutor General’s (PG) office has “no intention” of reversing the decision to charge a 15 year-old child abuse victim with fornication, local media has reported.

An official from the PG’s office told local newspaper Haveeru that the decision to charge the 15-year-old from Shaviyani Atoll Feydhoo with fornication was made after extensive assessment of the case.

Back in June 2012, the same minor – a school student at the time – gave birth to a baby later discovered buried in the outdoor shower area of a home on Feydhoo.

The discovery led to the arrest of four people, including the 15 year-old girl’s mother and step father.

Haveeru reported that as the charges filed against the girl have no connection with the buried baby case, the PG’s office had no intention to withdraw the charges.

“So far we have no intention of reversing the decision to charge her at the Juvenile Court,” a PG’s official was quoted by local media.

Speaking to Minivan News on January 9 the Prosecutor General (PG’s) Office confirmed it had pressed charges against a 15 year-old girl from the island of Feydhoo in Shaviyani Atoll for having “consensual sexual relations”.

A spokesperson for the PG’s Office said the charges against the minor were unrelated to a separate case against the girl’s stepfather over allegations he had sexually abused her.

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Foreign Ministry halts issuing India visa application tokens

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has decided to hand back all Indian visa application operations to the Indian High Commission following a decline in visa requests, a Foreign Ministry spokesman has confirmed.

Last month Maldivians were forced to queue outside the Indian High Commission in Male’ – sometimes overnight – to obtain medical visas to travel to India due to tightened restrictions by Indian authorities.

To alleviate the issue, the Foreign Ministry launched an SMS system that alerted individuals when it was their turn to have their visas processed.

However, following a decline in visa requests this month, Maldivians wishing to obtain tokens for their Indian visas to be processed will now have to use the Indian High Commission building as before, as the Foreign Ministry is no longer providing the service.

A spokesman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Minivan News that the decision to hand back full control of the visa process to the Indian High Commission was due to a “decline in visa requests”.

“During the school holidays there were more locals requesting visas to go to India, however the holidays are over now and the demand is less.

“Also, only 50 percent of the people we contacted by SMS to collect their visas from the high commission actually turned up,” the spokesman added.

Asked as to what would happen should the visa demand suddenly increase, the spokesperson assured the ministry would take measures to “ensure” all visas are processed

“If there is a requirement we will consult the Indian High Commission. It is currently issuing 53 tokens per day and we think that is working fine for now,” he said. “We will ensure that Maldivians will get their visas.”

An official from within the Indian High Commission today confirmed that visa applications to India had decreased, noting that today there had been “less than 50” applicants.

“The Foreign Ministry is only taking difficult cases now as the arrangement from December was only a temporary solution to deal with the circumstances,” he said.

The official admitted that there was a possibility for the queues to increase following the switch, however added “if there is a problem, we will try our best to find a solution to it.”

Visa restrictions

The High Commission has claimed that the tightened restrictions were in line with a bilateral agreement signed back in 1979 and its appropriation by Maldivian authorities in the intervening years.

A source within the Indian High Commission, speaking to Minivan News on December 29, 2012, contended that all visas given to Maldivians for travel to India were provided free of charge – a courtesy claimed to have not been extended to Indian citizens coming to the Maldives for work.

The commission spokesperson added that the introduction of the tighter regulations was imposed as a clear “signal” from Indian authorities that the concerns it had over practices in the Maldives such as the confiscation of passports of migrant workers, needed to be brought to an end.

On November 26 last year, a public notice had been issued by the Maldives Immigration Department requesting no employer in the country should be holding passports of expatriate workers.

The Maldives has come under strong criticism internationally in recent years over its record in trying to prevent people trafficking, with the country appearing on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking three years in a row.

The high commission also claimed this year that skilled expatriate workers from India, employed in the Maldives education sector, had continued to be “penalised” due to both government and private sector employers failing to fulfil their responsibilities.

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ACC to investigate Club Faru Resort complaints

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is to investigate whether Club Faru Resort employees were hired without being told of a change in management, local media reports.

Earlier this month, the Tourism Ministry took over the resort from its present owners following the expiry of its lease agreement and handed control to the government-owned Maldives Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC).

President of ACC Hassan Luthfy told local media that while no case had been filed to the commission in writing regarding Club Faru, the ACC was investigating due to the complaints received from “various groups” in relation to the resort.

“The major complaint we have received is that the government operates the resort using its previous employees, and that they were given employment without making the necessary announcements. These kinds of complaints, we are looking into them,” he said.

Tourism Minister Ahmed Adheeb told Minivan News that the resort would be closed within two months as part of the government’s plan to begin the second phase of “reclaiming” Hulhumale’ this year.

“The resort is to be operated by a government company for two months and it will then be closed down and reclaimed.
“It was a seven year lease that expired on November 15,” he said earlier this month. “Now the government has decided to reclaim that part of Hulhumale’.”

Adheeb told Minivan News that the resort would be closed as part of the government’s plans to begin the second phase of “reclaiming” Hulhumale’ this year.

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Floating island development to “definitely” start this year: Dutch Docklands CEO

A series of man-made floating islands in the Maldives are to begin development this year, Dutch Docklands International CEO Paul van de Camp has confirmed.

The project, which proposes the creation of five man-made islands to support leisure activities in the Maldives, will see the development of a 19-hole golf course begin by the end of 2013.

Set to combine underwater club houses, subterranean tunnels and private submarines, the course is expected to cost an estimated £320million (MVR 7.6 billion), UK media reported last year.

Speaking to Minivan News (January 15) van de Camp said more information regarding the finalised designs will be made available to the public later this year.

“We will definitely start [the development] in 2013. Our final selection of designs will be revealed in the next two to three months,” he added.

The project was first approved back in 2010 under the government of former President Mohamed Nasheed as a means to try and diversify tourism in the country.

An agreement with the former government to develop floating properties on five lagoons within Kaafu Atoll included a convention centre and an 18-hole golf course as part of a joint venture agreement.

Back in August last year, UK-based Daily Mail Newspaper reported that Dutch Docklands had unveiled designs for a floating golf course to be based “five minutes” away from Male’ by speed boat.

“The islands will also be designed for swimmers, divers and even private submarines to enter from below, and the Dutch firm designing the scheme has said visitors will be able to rent private submarines that can surface right in the middle of their living rooms,” the newspaper reported.

According to the Dutch Docklands website, the company is a shareholder in U-Boat Worx – a Dutch company that builds the “world’s most advanced” submarines.

Australian media recently reported more designs from the European developer, one of which being of a star-shaped floating convention hotel entitled “green star”.

“The Green Star will blend-in naturally with the existing surrounding islands. The green covered star-shape building symbolises Maldivians innovative route to conquer climate change,” a Dutch Docklands spokesperson told Herald Sun.

“This will become the number one location for conventions about climate change, water management and sustainability.”

Speaking to the Daily Mail last year, van de Camp said he had told the Maldives’ President “we can transform you from climate refugees to climate innovators.”

“The first part of the project to be built will be the golf course. This will be the first and only floating golf course in the world – and it comes complete with spectacular ocean views on every hole.

“And then there’s the clubhouse. You get in an elevator and go underwater to get to it. It’s like being Captain Nemo down there,” he was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

Koen Olthuis, who is working on the project through his Netherlands-based firm, WaterStudio, told the paper that the islands would be constructed outside of the country – potentially in India or the Middle East – a decision he claimed would ensure “no environmental cost to the Maldives”.

“When it comes to the golf course, the islands will be floated into position first and then the grass will be seeded and the trees planted afterwards,” he said.

The Daily Mail added that designers were aiming for the project to be run on renewable energy technology such as solar power, while claiming the construction would be carbon neutral.

According to an Australian news site, Dutch Docklands is currently selling waterfront villas situated overwater and designed in the shape of a ‘typical’ Maldivian flower at a starting price of $950,000.

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