Tag: minivan

Former Mayor appointed Special Envoy on Infrastructure Development

President Mohamed Nasheed has appointed ‘Sarangu’ Adam Manik as Special Envoy of the President on Infrastructure Development, following Manik’s resignation as Mayor of Male’ City Council yesterday.

Manik told Haveeru yesterday that he had decided to resign because of “pressures from within the council”.

“Some of the council members had personal expectations which made it difficult for me to perform my duties,” he said.

A no-confidence motion against Manik put forward by council members last week was revoked, after it was withdrawn by Councillor Mohamed Falah.

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Dengue fever taskforce to disband if situation remains stable

The government’s dengue task force will be disbanded if incidents of dengue fever remain stable over the next few days, Haveeru has reported.

Speaking on behalf of the task force, Deputy Education Minister Dr Abdulla Nazeer said in the last 24 hours new cases had only been identified in four of the eight islands most affected by the mosquito-borne disease.

The work of the task force would be handed to the Health Ministry, Dr Nazeer said.

The official dengue death toll is eight this year, including seven children. A 41 year-old man died on Thursday while a 62 year-old man admitted to hospital with dengue died yesterday.

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Army’s intervention in immigration is progress, not policy failure: Human Resources Minister

Human Resources Minister Hassan Latheef has denied that his ministry and immigration authorities failed to deal with longstanding internal concerns over corrupt “discretionary” practices, after the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) temporarily took over border control this week.

The country’s defense forces have taken over front-line immigration services as well as the employment arm of the Human Resources Ministry amidst an ongoing investigation into allegations of what Immigration Controller Abdulla Shahid claimed was corruption in the work permit system.

Speaking to Minivan News today, Latheef claimed that cabinet’s decision to deploy the military to oversee immigration was further encouraged by the revelation that the Maldives remained on the US State Department’s Tier 2 Watch List for human trafficking. The report criticised the country for having increasing number of migrant workers from Bangladesh and to a lesser extent, India, being subjected to forced labour in the Maldives, as well as showing little evidence of increased efforts to tackle the problem.

Latheef claimed that despite an apparent lack of direct action on suspected human trafficking, his office had supplied a database of information and accounts from 16,000 illegal immigrants working in the country that had been used to identify companies and employment agencies suspected of foul play.

However, with foreign worker exploitation estimated to rival fishing as the second greatest contributor of foreign currency to the Maldivian economy, the human resources minister claimed that it was now vital to bring about regulatory reforms that would cut out the “discretionary powers” among both civil servants and political figures in government departments like his own.

“Giving too much discretion – to anybody, especially when money is so much involved – leads to corruption. Even I do not require any discretion for that matter. It should be in black and white,” he said.

Latheef claimed that these concerns should not be viewed as an indication of complete failure within the ministry’s handling of expatriate workers.

“I wouldn’t say that the Department of Immigration or human resources failed in this. We have done a lot of work, a lot of substantial work that has provided us with lot of findings especially the [information] about the 16,000 illegal expatriates I was referring to. That’s quite an achievement.”

Latheef said he accepted there had been delays in taking action against alleged corruption within the country’s visa system, which he claimed was identified immediately after coming into office in 2008.  The minister added that it had not been possible for the combined efforts of his ministry and the immigration department to resolve them alone.

“I do admit there is a delay in taking action, but I don’t see how this can be resolved without a third party getting involved. I think the MNDF is ideal for this and that is the decision we took in the cabinet,” he said. “It’s not like one morning I woke up and discovered that something was wrong. I discovered this on November 12, 2008. The very first press conference I gave in 2008, in December if I’m not mistaken, I did mention there are a lot of issues and faults in the database of the ministry and I have been working on this since.”

Latheef said that a number of findings had been passed onto the police as part of ongoing investigations, though he said that the different functions of government meant the ministry could not move by itself to try and combat the alleged corruption within it.

“I’ve submitted cases to police and raised issues with the cabinet, so it’s time everyone understands what I was trying to say back in 2008 and 2009. Now I’m very happy that the MNDF has come to my office and they are doing the work that I have tried to do. I do see some good things in it.”

With three years of concerns over the ministry’s role in assigning and regulating work visas to foreign workers, Latheef claimed that the ministry would now need to demonstrate a significant and visible change in policy to restore confidence in its operations.

Among these changes, the minister claimed, would be new software systems and database management software implemented in conjunction with the National Centre for Information Technology (NCIT) and the MNDF, as well as tighter legislation.

Through this proposed legislation, which Latheef said had begun to be put into force from the middle of this month, the government is said to be hoping to provide a much more comprehensive system for dealing with expatriate workers along with new IT systems designed to reduce discrepancies in visa numbers.

“Discretionary powers”

With large sums of money involved in the national trade in human trafficking, Latheef claimed it was vital to move away from a system of allowing individuals wide-spread discretionary powers to approve or disapprove visa applications.

“The previous regulations we have had allows a lot of discretionary powers for the directors and assistant directors who are sitting in the ministries, giving them the right to reject or issue quotas,” he said. “It is not an oversight – it is a deliberate work of the previous government I should say.”

Amidst additional challenges said to be facing the government, Latheef said that streamlining communication and collaboration between different ministries had been a significant issue since the government of President Mohamed Nasheed had been voted into power in 2008.

Earlier this week, Immigration Controller Abdulla Shahid told Minivan News that the relationship between the Human Resources Ministry and the Immigration Department prior to the MNDF’s intervention had been “strained”, and that there was no shared IT system linking the records of both.

In addressing the claims, Latheef said that he believed that the appointment in February of Abdulla Shahid to the post of immigration controller had already led to changes in inter-departmental policy concerning visa allowances.

“Especially with the former controller [Ilyas Hussein Ibrahim], it was not easy to hold discussions on any matter. I’m not criticising his policies or administrative capacity. But as politicians, we should be able to sit down and discuss anything we want to and try and find a comfortable solution – especially when we are in the same government,” he said. “Now it is very much easier for me. Even today I had a meeting with the controller [Shahid] and the defense minister discussing this [visa] issue.”

The human resources minister claimed that distrust in the past between his own office and the Department of Immigration had perhaps prevented important information being shared between the two bodies.

“For instance, the Immigration Department would not share with us the information on issues of working visas because of mistrust they had – and vice versa. With these new developments, all this information could be viewed by a lot more government agencies,” he said. “I’m not sure on this, as we are still discussing the matter, but the police should be a party that are able to see and view all our data from the ministry. If we issue a work permit to anyone, there should be other agencies in the government who should be able to view this from their computers. It’s always a check when someone else is watching you.”

Ultimately, Latheef said that he believed cabinet ministers had to show more trust in their own judgments on key policy issues, rather than relying wholeheartedly on civil servants from within their departments.

While claiming that he was not aware of anyone within his ministry who was deliberately trying to undermine the government, Latheef said that he was concerned some politicians were relying too much on civil servants who had held their positions for almost two decades.

“I’m not aware of anyone who is deliberately following an agenda of the previous government in this ministry, but knowingly or unknowingly, some people tend to work in alliance with [them],” he said. “In other words, sometimes they forget the government has changed and that it is a new bunch of people running the country now, with a very different manifesto and manner of administration and its time they understand that. That has been there, even in this ministry.”

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Parliament deadlocks over control of influential committees

Parliament has deadlocked as the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) and ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) grapple for control of parliament’s most powerful and influential committees.

Parliamentary regulation dictates that composition of committees such as the 241 ‘National Security’ and Finance Committees is determined based on party representation, which has shifted following the recent defection of three opposition MPs to the ruling party.

One of these former opposition MPs, Ali Waheed, chairs the National Security Committee.

In a bid to head off MDP control of the committees, Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Party Leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali was meeting with Jumhoree Party (JP) leader Gasim Ibrahim to discuss a potential coalition agreement, DRP MP Ahmed Nihan confirmed.

Of parliament’s 12 committees the MDP control five seats, the DRP 4, while the rest were chaired by Independents, Nihan said.

While agreeing that greater representation entitled the MDP to greater committee presence, “there are certain circumstances it which committees concerned with public accountability, finance and national security should [be held] by the opposition,” he said.

The cancellation of sessions this week due to the deadlock not only delaying the passing of many important bills, he said, but “also compromising the work of my own committee on social services. We are working on a Right to Information Bill with stakeholders and experts from all over the world.”

DRP Deputy Leader Ibrahim Shareef said the MDP’s bid for control of the committees was “a real matter of concern”, and also claimed that oversight committees in many other countries, such as the UK and India, were headed by opposition figures.

He acknowledged that the DRP was in discussions with other opposition-aligned parties regarding the forming of a coalition. The party is already formally allied with the People’s Alliance (PA) and the Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP), but not yet Gasim’s Jumhoree Party.

“We are in discussion,” he said. The party was, he said, “open to everything”, and acknowledged that a formal coalition agreement with the Jumhoree Party would strengthen the party regardless of the factional battle current waging between Thasmeen and former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s ‘Z-DRP’.

“There are many positions on which we agree. Gasim was once deputy leader of the DRP and his political and ideology remain similar,” Shareef said.

The MDP’s play for the committees comes as the party is seeking to pass a number of bills it regards as critical for the country’s future prosperity, notably a package of economic and taxation reforms it has pledged to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). If debate over the bills erupt, their fate is likely to be decided by the Finance Committee, which in 2009 increased state budget expenditure by 20 percent.

“We do not oppose modernising and reforming the tax system, but it is a concern when government expenditure is 55 percent of GDP and the government is not doing enough to bring that down,” Shareef said.

The government’s proposed income tax only targets people earning more than Rf 30,000 a month – “taxing the rich is not a problem,” Shareef said – but many such earners include landlords, he noted.

“Rents will just go up, and this will have an adverse effect on people who can least afford it,” he said. “Taxation would be a huge drain, particularly for people already paying high rents in Male’.”

MDP Parliamentary Group Leader and MP Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, MP Eva Abdulla, MP Ahmed Hamza and MDP Spokesperson Ahmed Haleem were not responding at time of press.

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Four children dead in two days from dengue fever complications

A fourth dengue fever fatality in just two days has prompted meetings between Male’ City Council and the Ministry of Health to discuss “immediate steps” to reduce the number of mosquito breeding grounds in the capital.

The President’s Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair said cabinet had also launched a program to counter the dengue outbreak and appointed a committee to oversee mosquito reduction efforts.

Haveeru reported that a four year old child from Muraidhoo in Haa Alif Atoll became the fourth death in two days, dying this morning while in transit to Kulhudhuffushi Regional Hospital.

The cause of the death was dengue hemorrhagic fever, the newspaper reported.

A two year old infant died at 3:00am this morning while being treated in Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Male’. Haveeru reported a relative as claiming that the infant had to be transferred from ADK due to lack of availability of a blood transfusion machine.

A six year-old girl and a nine month-old baby died yesterday after being transferred to Male’ from Meemu Atoll.

Health Minister Dr Aminath Jameel, replying to a question from MDP MP Ali Waheed during yesterday’s parliament session, said the ministry was providing information to islands through teleconferencing and stressed that controlling mosquito breeding grounds was key to combating the rise in dengue fever across the country.

“Mosquitoes don’t travel very far,” she explained. “Therefore, it’s mosquitoes from nearby areas that are spreading it. Controlling mosquito [breeding] is needed from the public and individuals as well. We are working together with island councils and the Male’ city council.”

She added that the Addu City council had taken initiative and organised activities to combat the spread of the disease.

“An additional problem that we encounter is the quick turnover of doctors in the country’s hospitals and health centres,” she said. “So they are not very familiar with the protocol here. We are facing that problem as well. But as I’ve said, this can’t solved without controlling mosquito [breeding].”

When People’s Alliance (PA) MP Abdul Raheem Abdulla asked if she was considering resignation “since based on what is being said here your sector has very much failed,” Dr Jameel replied that she did not believe that was the case.

The Maldives has been battling a growing epidemic of dengue fever this year, with 300 cases and five deaths reported in just the first two months of the year.

There has been a spike in the number of cases reported in Male’, however most of the fatalities have been islanders who died in transit to regional hospitals. Many of the most serious cases have affected children.

Early symptoms of virus include fever, joint paint and a distinctive rash and headache, although it can be difficult to distinguish from the milder Chikungunya disease which can last for up to five days. Even healthy adults can be left immobile by dengue for several weeks while the disease runs its course.

The government and health authorities have expressed concern about mosquito breeding grounds developing in stagnant water in the city’s many construction sites.

“The boom in the construction industry has created a huge number of mosquito breeding grounds,” former head of the Community Health and Disease Control (CCHDC), Dr Ahmed Jamsheed, told Minivan News in April.

“In Male’ when the Council gives planning permission it requires management of mosquito breeding grounds, but have so far failed to enforce it or conduct inspections. My experience in Male’ was that when our teams visited construction sites there was often nobody at the site to communicate with in Dhivehi or English.”

While the teams might be contact with the construction company responsible for the building, often those working at the site were employed under layers of subcontracting which made it difficult to place responsibility, he added.

Zuhair told Minivan News today that the problem was exacerbated by the large number of unfinished buildings where construction had ceased.

“For example, one proposed seven storey-building has [ceased construction] at four storeys, and has pools of stagnant water on top,” he said, adding that it was sometimes difficult to pinpoint who was responsible for the building site due to the layers of subcontractors involved.

Many islands had sought to combat the problem by borrowing fogging equipment and expertise from nearby resorts to kill their mosquito populations, but this also killed beneficial insects, he said.

“It is common for resorts to loan fogging equipment and technical assistance to local islands, but this has negative side effects: it kills all the other insects, which prevents pollination and impacts agricultural activity,” Zuhair explained, adding that human intervention and the elimination of breeding sites was the main priority.

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Masked men rob Marble Hotel of Rf100,000

Police are investigating the theft of Rf100,000 (US$$6485) from Marble Hotel, after a group of masked men broke into the building and threatened the receptionist with an axe early this morning.

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said the men entered the hotel’s lobby around 4:00am this morning, threatened staff and took the money from a small safe in the hotel.

Shiyam said police were investigating the possibility than the men knew about the safe and its contents prior to the robbery.

A staff member at the hotel told newspaper Haveeru that the thieves broke the lock on the main door.

“One forced an axe to the neck of the receptionist while another person had his knife pressed against the other side of his neck. The group also robbed the receptionist’s wristwatch,” Haveeru reported the staff member as saying.

Police are currently investigating CCTV footage of the incident, but have yet to make any arrests.

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Scale of Maldives drug use and addiction uncertain: UNICEF

Many Maldivians are still failing to understand the difference between drug abuse and addiction, with the full scale of narcotics use in the country yet to come to light, UNICEF’s resident representative said today.

The comments by Zeba Tanvir Bukhari were made during the launch of a new toll-free helpline for local people and communities affected by the trade of illegal drugs in the country.

Speaking this morning at a ceremony at Dharubaaruge  to unveil the hotline, alongside representatives from the Ministry of Health and Family and President Mohamed Nasheed, Bukhari said that EU-funded programme was designed to offer drug users support in trying to overcome addiction.

“The helpline will be able to tell if one has an addiction problem or not. Most people are not able to substantiate between abuse and addiction,” she said. “The information provided by the helpline will be highly effective for enabling many to recognise the symptoms [of addiction] in order to seek proper relief measures. It can help in referring people to an intervention programme for drug abuse and HIV/AIDs-related treatment, support and care.”

The launch of the toll-free service coincided with the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking and represents a collaboration between the UN, the EU, Maldivian health authorities, local telecoms providers like Wataniya and the government.

The service, which can be accessed by dialling the number 1410 locally, was inaugurated by President Nasheed who spoke with a counsellor via a video screen during today’s promotional launch event.

Outside of the hotline launch, the president has vowed to crackdown on the country’s illegal narcotics trade in a week that has seen police arrested a suspected high-profile drugs kingpin.  This pledge was itself followed by local media  reports of further security crackdowns on shipments at the Maldives’ main shipping ports by the armed forces.

As part of attempts to try and help tackle drug issues at both international and community level, Unicef Resident Representative Bukhari said that although the new helpline would actively try and provide assistance for Maldivians struggling with the effects of drug use, it would be open to anyone who was concerned with issues relating to potential addiction.

“The helpline can guide an individual through specific problems such as avoiding risk factors that that can pose a relapse. The helpline isn’t only for problem drug users, but for co-dependents, family and friends or professionals seeking support in other forms,” she added.

Scale of the problem

According to statistics from a UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) study released just last week, 210 million people aged between 15 to 64 years of age –almost five per cent of the world’s population – were believed to have tried illegal drugs or other “illicit” substances at least once during 2010.

Although official figures are not presently available regarding drug use and levels of addiction in the Maldives, Bukhari claimed that the first ever scientifically rigorous drug-use study to be conducted in the Maldives was currently underway. Once published, she said the report was expected to provide a true picture of the scale of drug dependency facing people aged between 15 to 64 living in the country.

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Climate funding unprecedented opportunity for corruption, warns Transparency

Climate funding presents unprecedented opportunities for corruption as large sums of money flow through new channels from donor nations, Transparency Maldives (TM) has warned.

Over US$130 billion in worldwide funding for climate change adaption and mitigation projects is predicted to flow into the highly complex aid sector, said TM Project Coordinator Maurifa Hassan, during the local launch of Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report focusing on climate change.

“Those most affected by climate change are those most marginalised,” said Hassan during the launch at Traders Hotel. “Rules of engagement” set by donor nations were “diverse and complicated”, and directing funding to where it was needed most would require strengthening transparency and governance practices.

Already, she said, “where carbon markets have been introduced, the rules tend to be set by the market leaders.”

Speaking at the launch, Finance Minister Ahmed Inaz emphasised the importance of ensuring aid investment and expenditure was transparent.

“Many islands require immediate and expensive engineering,” he said. “Adaption is costly, and sea walls do not come cheap. Male’s sea wall cost US$17 million, and without the support of Japan we would not have been able to build it.”

Investment in renewable energy was also central to the country breaking its addiction to imported oil, he noted.

“However, large amounts of international funds have gone into reports produced by foreign consultants, which then sit on the shelves in various ministries,” Inaz said. “That is also a form of corruption – the money is not going where it is needed.”

‘Climate Champion’ Hamza Khaleel from the Commonwealth’s Youth Program observed that accountability for funding among local bodies was “almost non-existent.”

“The people are the eventual victims of half-finished projects, and this can have a real impact on democracy,” he said.

“The government must lead by example, as the private sector takes its lead from the government.”

Transparency International’s report on climate finance corruption emphasised “better governance” as the solution, and said that “it will be crucial to ensure that the mitigation strategies and adaptation solutions that emerge at local, national and international levels embrace participation, accountability and integrity.”

“Left unchallenged, corruption ruins lives, destroys livelihoods and thwarts attempts at social and economic justice. The same risks apply to climate change,” the report said.

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“Discrepancies” prompt MNDF to oversee IT upgrade to curb labour trafficking

The Maldives will not become “a nest for human trafficking”, President Mohamed Nasheed pledged during his weekly radio address, although he acknowledged “many failures in the efforts by government agencies to maintain expatriate records.”

Speaking during his weekly radio address, Nasheed said there were discrepancies between the numbers of expatriate workers reported by the Human Resources, Youth and Sports and the Department of Immigration and Emigration.

The Human Resources Ministry claimed there were 74,000 foreign workers in the country, Nasheed said, while records at the Department of Immigration said there were 94,000 – suggesting that at least six percent of the country’s population is unaccounted for.

Nasheed said the government estimated that 40,000 expatriates in the country were working illegally. The situation had reached “an alarming level”, he said, “due to failure to investigate illegal workers, and lack of a systematic approach to [monitor] arrivals, employment and living conditions of expatriates.”

The President said he had tasked the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) with overseeing the upgrade of IT and infrastructure at both the Human Resources Ministry and the Immigration Department.

He also announced the launch of a special police investigation into “any unlawful activity that might have led to the increasing number of illegal workers.”

“We will do everything possible to make the Maldives a country that respects human dignity, and ensure all Maldivians respect human rights and pursue a civilised lifestyle,” Nasheed said.

The government has placed greater urgency on addressing the problem of labour trafficking amid wider concerns over the health of the economy – particularly the foreign currency shortage. One report from the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) estimates that every expatriate worker remits US$100 per month to their families back home, for a total drain of US$8 million every month – a greater amount than the country earns from its new Tourism Goods and Services Tax.

By far the greatest number of expatriate labourers in the country are Bangladeshi nationals, and to a much lesser extent, Sri Lanka.

Former High Commissioner of Bangladesh Professor Selia Mohsin told Minivan News last year that 40 Bangladeshi nationals were arriving at the High Commission’s reception desk daily, “having come to the Maldives and found they have nothing to do”. She claimed that unscrupulous employment brokers in both countries were exploiting potentially hundreds of millions of dollars a year from illiterate and uneducated rural Bangladeshi families desperate for better opportunities.

Under Maldivian law, foreign workers arriving in the Maldives must have a work permit issued by the Immigration Department. This is obtained through an employer or agent, who must first request a foreign worker quota from the Ministry of Trade and Human Resources.

“The Maldivian [side] gets into connection with the Bangladeshi brokers, gets a business permit from the Ministry of Human Resources, says they want to recruit and gets a quota for more workers than they require – if they require any at all – and then ask a Bangladeshi counterpart to bring in the workers,” Professor Mohsin told Minivan News last year.

Brokers charged individual workers up to US$4000 to arrange their employment in the Maldives, she said, explaining that in many cases the family home and land was sold or mortgaged to raise this fee, split two-thirds in favour of the Maldivian broker.

One case that arrived on her desk – an application approved by the Ministry of Human Resources – was a request for 1800 workers for an unspecified construction project.

“Those people would have come [to Male’] had I not checked. Had I not done it, 1800 people would have sold their homes and become delinquent in the Maldives. This did not bother a Maldivian broker,” she said at the time. “Hell is not good enough for the people who are doing this.”

More recently, Immigration Controller Abdulla Shahid revealed that Bangladeshi nationals will be issued work visas by the Maldives High Commission in the national capital of Dhaka, in an attempt to address booming numbers of workers arriving in the country. These workers would require additional documents verified and issued in Bangladesh before their work visas and ID cards could be issued in the Maldives.

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