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Showing posts from September, 2010

Hypocrites!

Here comes the stink bomb and political heavy weights are going to be busy with series of protests and court cases, radio tv programs regarding each and every issue under the sun except this one.  Even the media seems to be uninterested in the issue ( article below ). My question is it a fair deal for the investors as a whole, the people, and the country or for a select few? Note-You will find link to more laws related to the issue in the Laws page.

Uncle the Developer and the Hypocrites

A headline in Haveeru screams that a certain tourism tycoon has sold his resort for 81 million dollars for 18 years; This 81 million dollar resort has 269 beds; That is 4.4 million dollar per year and  16,728.62 dollar per bed, per year. For that money he bought another resort for 40 million dollars. This 40 million dollar resort has 50 beds; That is 1.25 million dollar per year and 25000 dollar per bed, per year. He must be a really happy man after these deals. In an another event,  the Majlis  decided that in future, resorts will be charged 8 dollars per square meter as lease rent and  3.5 percent tax from goods and services sold to tourists- in return for extending resort lease period for 50 years. While this movie was being unveiled I thought the political leaders (except from the government) would cry foul as they did for Guantanamo Bay fiasco , firing of Army personal,  municipality land selling, airport deal, electricity hike, No province protest etc...  since the bi

One step forward and three steps backward

The amendment to decentralization bill to have as many councils as you want has been ratified. According to this amendment each administrative unit   (mistakenly) called an island is also to have their separate councils.I   checked the meaning of island from the dictionary and it says  “A land mass (smaller than a continent) that is surrounded by water” Hence I do not understand how anyone can call a part or ward of an island such as kulhduhoo, fares, maathoda, hulhudhoo meedhoo, feydhoo, maradhoo, etc separately an island.   Two schools, two island offices, two health centers in an island where it only takes maximum 15 minutes to cover by walk-  with a combined population barely reaching a thousand or two  is really ridiculous. With that comes ‘artificial ‘job creation in the civil and other services where public money is wasted for zero productivity (5 or 6  billion out of 7 billion revenue as salaries) and the result is fat and expe

Divide and rule!

We are an unfortunate lot. I mean we are already divided geographically to insignificant proportions making it unsustainable, unfeasible and not viable to do and sustain anything valuable. (On top of that some bigger islands want to stay divided administratively to get two or more councils!!). In this state the perks available to any ruler is ignorance of his subjects, them being busy with their quarrels, arguments, and differences to notice the sorry state they are in. This makes The Maldives a heaven to get power, to stay in power and sustain that power without doing much, for centuries to come! Let me get to the point. According to last census, 75 islands have a population of less than 500, 58 islands have a pop. between 500-1000, and only 65 islands have more than 1000 pop. If I have my way, an inhabited island should have at least 1000 pop (which is not much). If it does not fit the criteria, the people should be offered the option to move to bigger islands. Any i