In an interview with StratNews during his visit to India, Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid expressed confidence in President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih winning a second term as the opposition was resorting to inciting hatred because they lacked “concrete policies”.
A two-day ‘STEM Fair’ with students from seven schools organised by Ooredoo in collaboration with the education ministry and Women in Tech kicked off at the Izzuddin School in Malé.
Some of the work showcased at the exhibition included robotics, portable vacuums, and tidal vortex turbines. After an evaluation of projects in novice, junior and senior categories by judges, the winners are to be announced on Saturday evening. The fair is open to the public from 10 a.m to 4 p.m.
Speaking at the Malé City Council’s first meeting with the public this year, Mayor Dr Mohamed Muizzu highlighted the council’s work from 2022 and pledged to complete new projects by the end of 2023.
Key projects include closing down the local market after Eid to construct a four-storey building. In the satellite island of Vilimalé, the council plans to introduce a buggy vehicle service on 9 March and to develop a picnic area with a futsal pitch and children’s park.
The solution to the congested capital’s housing crisis was to reclaim 1,380 hectares of land from the Gulhifalhu, Fushidhiggaru and Giraavaru lagoons near Malé, the former housing minister suggested. Housing loan schemes and subsidies should then be introduced to build and pay for new homes and flats, he added.
Muizzu criticised the infrastructure ministry’s decision in mid-2022 to take over the Ameenee Magu redevelopment project from the city council and hand it over to the Road Development Corporation, which has fallen behind schedule in laying asphalt on the thoroughfare.
The mayor also responded to questions and concerns expressed by members of the public. The decentralisation law requires councils to hold town hall meetings every six months.
The new national digital identity card would only be introduced after ensuring that personal data would be safe, the National Centre for Information Technology assured at a press briefing, addressing concerns about potentially gathering and sharing personal data from multiple agencies without consent.
A privacy and data protection law is being drafted to plug legal gaps, State Minister Mohamed Shareef noted.
To be officially launched in the near future, the digital ID card and driver’s licence can be used for verification purposes and for accessing services from government agencies and businesses.
In late February, the NCIT invited Android phone users to test out the digital ID card with the eFaas mobile app.
As part of a shift towards digitalisation, the Government E-letter Management System (GEMS) is also planning to try out electronic signatures later this month.
As pledged in this year’s presidential address, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih announced a pay rise of up to 59% for university staff with effect on 1 March.
The increment in monthly salaries would benefit 767 employees at public universities and polytechnic centres, which would cost MVR62 million annually, the president noted.
- MVR29,900 (US$1,939) without overtime pay for Maldives National University teachers, up from MVR18,880.
- MVR34,000 for senior lecturers, up from MVR20,830.
- MVR39,400 for Assistant Professors, up from MVR23,500.
- MVR45,000 for Associate Professors, up from MVR26,000.
- MVR38,000 for Deans, up from MVR30,000.
- MVR42,000 for Registrars, up from MVR32,000.
- MVR48,000 for Deputy Vice Chancellors, up from MVR39,000.
- MVR26,000 for Associate Lecturers under the Vocation Education Professionals category, up from MVR14,700.
- MVR34,000 for lecturers, up from MVR17,000.
Speaking at the Workers’ Congress of the Maldives Trade Union Congress on Friday night, President Solih announced plans to introduce an unemployment insurance benefits scheme. A bill on occupational health and safety is now before parliament and an industrial relations law would be proposed in the coming week to enable the registration of workers’ unions for the first time, the president pledged.
More than 13,000 workers in the tourism industry and more than 15,000 government employees have benefitted from the minimum wage introduced by the current administration, he noted.
Jumhooree Party leader Qasim Ibrahim was tightlipped after a meeting with President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
Speaking to reporters outside the president’s office, the business magnate evaded questions about either challenging the president in September’s election or endorsing the incumbent and remaining in his Maldivian Democratic Party-led coalition. The existing coalition was discussed but a decision about the presidential election would be made by the JP’s council, he said, refusing to comment on any offers made by the president or the JP’s proposals or conditions for supporting Solih’s re-election bid.
Contrary to speculation about Speaker Mohamed Nasheed becoming the JP candidate’s running mate, Qasim said no such discussion has taken place.
Speculation about a Qasim-Nasheed ticket was fuelled this week by the JP leader’s effusive praise of the former president during the party’s national conference over the weekend.
On Tuesday, Nasheed met with Qasim’s advisor Ilham Ahmed in parliament. Information about the meeting was not disclosed. During Tuesday’s sitting of parliament, MP ‘Andhun’ Hussain Shameem – who is part of President Solih’s faction in the divided ruling party – accused Nasheed of trying to convince MDP members that electing Qasim as president was in their interest. It was wrong of Nasheed as the MDP president to support the presumptive candidate of another party while refusing to endorse the MDP’s candidate, he added.
In response, Nasheed did not deny the allegation. As the MDP currently has only 40% of the coalition government, a larger share through a different coalition deal would be a better outcome for the party, he suggested.
MDP members should consider the possibility of another party’s presidential candidate with an MDP running mate, MP Hassan Latheef, a Nasheed loyalist, said during the debate.
The Elections Commission assured blind voters that they would be able to cast their ballot without assistance in September’s presidential election.
In order to ensure secrecy without assisted voting, the Blind and Visually Impaired Society of Maldives proposed a cost-effective solution as an alternative to printing ballots with braille, which the EC is unable to do within its budget.
A stencil made of a hard material in the exact shape of the ballot paper could be offered with checkmarks cut out to line up with the boxes on the ballot, Hussain Shareef, the Blind Association’s vice president, explained at a press briefing. Once it is placed on top of the ballot paper, blind voters could touch the cut outs and tick the box for the preferred candidate based on the ballot number. Only one such template card would be needed for each ballot box, he noted.
During the week, the Blind Association held meetings on the issue with lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties as well as with parliament’s human rights committee, the Human Rights Commission, and the Elections Commission. The association has been appealing since 2017 for legal changes to allow blind voters to enter the voting booth by themselves.
The High Court upheld a jail sentence of one year, one month and 28 days handed to a former police officer who was found guilty of engaging in homosexual relations.
But the criminal court misapplied sentencing guidelines to increase the punishment from the statutory minimum, the High Court ruled, reducing the prison term by one month. The prosecution had asked for a seven-month prison term after the defendant confessed and pleaded guilty. Homosexuality is a class five felony if the offender is married. But the penal code allows mitigation of two levels “if an offender credibly and publicly acknowledges guilt and expresses genuine remorse before trial”.
The Drug Enforcement Department policeman, Abdul Rahman Rafeeu, was prosecuted over a leaked sex tape with a Bangladeshi man.
The 25-year-old migrant worker, M. D. Alamgiri, was sentenced to seven months in prison after confessing to charges of consensual “unlawful intercourse.” In September, he was sentenced to a further two years and nine months on 40 counts of producing pornography.
The scandal broke in late June with leaked videos of Alamgiri with lawyer Nazim Sattar, former MP ‘Colonel’ Mohamed Nasheed and the police officer. Nazim, younger brother of former president Mohamed Nasheed, was placed under house arrest. A chief customs officer was also sentenced to three months in jail and six months under house arrest in October.
Non-Resident Ambassador Mohamed Khaleel presented his letter of credence to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the first time that a Maldivian ambassador presented credentials to a Palestinian president after diplomatic relations were established in April 1982.
A group of civil servants protested outside Velaanaage over the lack of parking space. The high-rise building in Malé houses most government offices.
Civil servants found the motorcycle parking zone next to Velaanage closed off when they came to work in the morning. The lot was covered with a net at the request of the planning ministry, the police said, as the city council complained about not being informed.
The parking zone was cleared out and fenced off to use a crane to remove an unused parking machine placed there by the previous government, a state minister for planning told Adhadhu.
Parking on the road side is banned near Velaanage. But the police did not enforce the parking rules until last month, issuing tickets to cycles lined up outside the building during working hours, which put a stop to illegal parking. Each time a sticker is pasted on a motorcycle, the owner is fined MVR250 (US$16).
Space from other parking zones in the busy government office and commercial district is usually unavailable during working hours.
Ali Nazeer, state minister for home affairs and spokesman of the religious conservative Adhaalath Party, assailed NGO Jamiyyathul Salaf as an “organisation formed by people who lack the courage to step out in front and openly engage in political activity to do so in hiding.” It was “regrettable” that prominent Islamic scholars were among this group, he added.
The criticism came after leadership figures from the opposition Progressive Party of Maldives met with Salaf’s senior members for a “discussion regarding the 2023 presidential election.”
Salaf should form a political party if it wishes to enter the fray, Nazeer continued, calling on the Registrar of Associations to advise the NGO to remain within legal bounds. The associations law prohibit supporting or promoting political parties.
The Islamist Adhaalath Party and Jamiyyathul Salaf are ideologically far apart in the religious spectrum of the Maldives.
For years now, the Adhaalath Party’s clerics have refrained from hitting back against Salaf’s attacks, Home Minister Sheikh Imran Abdulla tweeted on Monday.
The Bank of Maldives denied claims by a lawmaker about a customer losing more than MVR1 million (US$64,850) from his account.
The allegation was made by ruling party MP Ahmed Haroon during Tuesday’s sitting of parliament as lawmakers debated a motion without notice about BML customers losing money in fraudulent transactions.
Last month, the bank faced accusations of internal security breaches or culpability by staff after several credit card users discovered unauthorised transactions, most commonly for US$149.99 on SteamGames.com. But the bank insisted that its systems were secure and that card or account details could not have been leaked internally.
It urged victims to submit transaction dispute forms and advised against clicking links in scam messages to protect their internet banking login credentials. According to the police, the recent “surge in cases of fraudulent money transactions” involved usernames and passwords stolen through phishing scams.
With two exceptions, other recent cases involved victims clicking links that promised nude photos of actress Aminath Rishfa, Dhauru reported.
A closed-door meeting of parliament’s state-owned enterprises committee on the fraud transactions was held on Wednesday with officials from the police, the Bank of Maldives, Maldives Monetary Authority, and the Communications Authority of Maldives.
A 30-year-old man who was stabbed inside a shop in Malé on Friday night (24 February) died of severe injuries.
Mohamed Ahmed Didi, known as Nautte, was left in critical condition after the stabbing. He had been undergoing treatment at the intensive care unit of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital when he passed away around 6:45 a.m.
According to eyewitnesses and videos shared on social media, two masked assailants wearing helmets chased the victim into a cosmetics shop near the BG Garage in Maafannu.
A 20-year-old suspect was arrested on Saturday night.
Both the fatal stabbing and the vandalism of a juice shop in Hulhumalé on 23 February were revenge attacks between rival gangs, the police chief told Adhadhu.
A cycle of gang violence was set off earlier this year by a dispute between two members of the NC and Kuda Henveiru gangs, Police Commissioner Mohamed Hameed explained, attributing other recent assaults in Malé to retaliatory attacks by the gangs.
Over the past two months, 16 people were arrested in connection with the assaults, he noted.
The vandalism of the Juice Time café was related to a dispute between the Masodi and Vai Kammathi gangs, he revealed. Seven suspects were arrested on Tuesday night after the police raided an apartment in Hulhumalé and seized weapons and drugs.
On Monday, ‘High Visibility Policing’ teams started using tasers for the first time. Officers above the rank of sergeant who have undergone training will be authorised to carry the less lethal weapon, the commissioner said, prompting concern over potential misuse.
The intention to deploy the electroshock weapon to incapacitate dangerous suspects in operations against terrorism or violent crime was announced last November. About 25 taser guns have been purchased from Axon and the Maldives would become the first country in Asia to use the American manufacturer’s latest model, Hameed told the press at the time.
Among other measures to curb gang violence, the police announced that motorcyclists wearing helmets on roads where it is not mandatory would be stopped and searched.
In May last year, the police revealed that there were 44 gangs with more than 2,800 members in Malé.
Gang violence and murders significantly declined in recent years as gang leaders resolved disputes through talks to avoid disruption to their lucrative drug trade. Guesthouses, restaurants and other businesses are used as cover for money laundering, according to the police.
Of 31 young men killed in gang-related murders, six victims were fatally stabbed in cases of mistaken identity.
The Attorney General’s office filed a case at the Maldives International Arbitration Centre to recover US$2.1 million from a Dubai company that was contracted by the health ministry in April 2020 to supply 75 ventilators.
An advance payment was made but only 15 ventilators were delivered, of which five did not meet specifications.
In December, the Anti-Corruption Commission sought criminal charges against three former health ministry officials over the advance payments made in the suspicious procurement.
A decision on pressing charges would be made this week, Prosecutor General Hussain Shameem told the press on Sunday.
After a compliance audit flagged suspected foul play in August 2020, the ACC previously submitted cases against 11 officials including former health minister Abdulla Ameen. But the Prosecutor General’s office declined to press charges, citing the suspension of public finance rules for the pandemic emergency response.
In August last year, Transparency Maldives called on the state to ensure accountability and recover lost funds. “The upfront payment of 90 per cent of the total value, the use of single source procurement procedures using false information, the absence of a performance and advance payments guarantee, and selecting a brand of ventilators that was not agreed by the Bid Committee in order to award the contract to Executors General Trading all show that an unfair advantage was given to a particular party,” the NGO noted.
The criminal court sentenced a convict to death over the murder of Ali Ziyadham in Laamu Atoll Mundoo.
Ziyadham, 29, was fatally stabbed in March 2015. Mohamed Shanoon and Ali Shifam, who are also from Mundoo, were found guilty last December. But only Shanoon was handed the death penalty as Shifam was convicted of aiding and abetting the murder. Shifam was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Asked if they wished to seek the death penalty or blood money prior to sentencing, the victim’s heirs opted for retaliation in kind under Islamic shariah.
The Maldives has a de facto moratorium on capital punishment and convicts sentenced to death are instead imprisoned for life.
An Indian man was killed by a coconut palm that fell during work on uprooting trees with an excavator. The accident occurred around 4:40 p.m. on the island of Buruni in Thaa Atoll.
Three other men injured in the accident were transferred to the regional hospital in Dhaal Kudahuvadhoo, a Buruni council member told Mihaaru. The foreign workers were later flown to Malé for treatment at the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital, after which one of the victims was discharged. A 27-year-old Sri Lankan and 43-year-old Indian continued to receive emergency treatment.
All of the injured men were workers from the Maldives Transport and Contracting Company, which is carrying out a coastal protection project on Buruni.
Faris Maumoon, leader of the Maldives Reform Movement, launched a “collaborative democracy experiment” dubbed One Isle “to foster a new kind of democratic process in which the public has a say in policy-making.”
According to the concept, the experiment “comprises a suite of software designed to enable a three-part process that facilitates the governance of the project, fosters discussions, and enables the submission of proposals through trusted proxy representatives. The first and third components of the process incorporate Blockchain technology to ensure transparency, immutability, and inclusivity.”
NGOs, CSOs and political organisations, were invited “to participate in the decentralised organisation to vote on behalf of the communities they represent, promoting issues such as democracy, human rights, economic diversification, climate change, education, health, and social security.”
Speaking at an MRM meeting on Saturday night, Faris accused other parties of “sowing discord” and benefiting from turning people against each other. Despite facing the prospect of dissolution for falling below the 3,000 minimum membership threshold, the MRM would not seek to sign up members with inducements such as government jobs, said Faris, son of former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
A group of MRM supporters have been campaigning on social media for Faris to run for president.
The party is yet to make a decision on fielding a candidate or remaining in the Maldivian Democratic Party-led coalition.
The Jumhooree Party’s congress favoured fielding a candidate or forming a JP-led coalition for September’s presidential election. A resolution to the effect was adopted unanimously by more than 400 delegates at the party’s fourth national conference, which took place at the Dharubaaruge convention centre in Malé.
However, a final decision would be up to the party’s council as the resolution is non-binding and serves as an advisory opinion of the congress. During the debate on the resolution, Ahmed Sameer – a former JP secretary general and minister at the president’s office – was booed and shouted over when he praised the government, reflecting the majority sentiment in the hall. With the exception of Sameer, all other speakers advised that the JP should no longer settle for a secondary role in a ruling coalition.
Earlier in the conference, Qasim Ibrahim was elected unopposed as the party’s leader. The business tycoon would also become JP’s presidential candidate should the council decide to contest. Alternately, the council could accept President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s invitation to remain in the Maldivian Democratic Party-led coalition and support his re-election. Hailed as the “kingmaker”, Qasim’s endorsement was pivotal in previous presidential elections.
Some senior JP members, including Vice President Faisal Naseem – who has publicly endorsed the president – and Tourism Minister Dr Abdulla Mausoom were conspicuous in their absence at the conference.
Transport Minister Aishath Nahula – one of Qasim’s four wives – was among five deputy leaders elected for a new term. Nahula received the most votes out of 12 contenders. Twenty-five members were also elected to the party’s new council. Former vice president Abdulla Jihad and former police commissioner Abdulla Nawaz along with three former Progressive Party of Maldives MPs were appointed as special advisors to Qasim.
In his speech at the closing ceremony, Qasim criticised the government’s slow decision-making in relation to extending the agreement for Villa College. He praised Speaker Mohamed Nasheed – who attended both the opening and closing ceremonies – for facilitating private higher education institutions during his presidency.
Qasim declared that the MDP would not exist without Nasheed, who was contentiously defeated by President Solih in January to secure the party’s ticket.
After the Maldives Development Alliance’s surprise decision to form a coalition with the Maldivian Democratic Party and endorse President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, media coverage and speculation turned to US$24 million owed as damages to Hilton by MDA leader Ahmed Siyam Mohamed’s ‘Sun’ resort company.
The coalition deal has no relation to the Hilton arbitral award, MDA deputy leaders insisted at a press conference. Sun will appeal the civil court order and try seek an out-of-court settlement, said Ali Mauroof. MDA deputy leader Aishath Rafiyya, who is also director at Sun, scoffed at the suggestion that the luxury resort operator lacked the finances to settle the payout if necessary.
The MDA also dismissed the opposition’s ‘India Out’ campaign and claims of Indian military presence in the Maldives as “political propaganda.”
