We do not want to lease our islands to investors for such a long period

written by Ilham Mohamed

Before the same MDP and Mohamed Nasheed was on the verge of leading people to take direct actions against the last president’s plan to lease more islands for resort developments, now Nasheed and MDP decides to lease the islands for private businessman to the excessive long period of fifty years. President Nasheed’s condescending plan to lease our islands to his so called “investors” needs to be rejected by the parliament immediately.

The real reason behind extending the lease is to get a short term fix for our budgetary needs while at the same time making his circle of rich resort owning lobbyist happy. It was only a few months ago a lot of hassle was created over the talk of leasing islands to meet the budgetary needs of Maldives during the last regime. Now Nasheed has forgotten all about it, when he acquired power, and is contradicting himself by asking the parliament to amend the legislation, to give away our islands from twenty five to fifty years The current law while allows long periods of time it states that private businessman cannot own sole ownership of islands for more than 25 years. Twenty five years is a good period of time for investments and I am sure it will attract true investors instead of greedy opportunistic businessmen.

There are many reasons why it is important that the lease should not be extended for fifty years. First and foremost it will benefit the ever scheming, selfish stingy resort owners. As we can see this has the whole mark of the interests of Maldives businessmen written all over it, instead of the Maldivian people. Moreover the current behaviour of most of our resort owners such as not willing to adopt the Employment Act and give basic rights to their employees, indicate the peoples deprivation under such owners will double from 25 to 50 years. On top of these deprivations giving such people the ownership of our islands will be an empowerment for them and will put them in control over abusive policies for a longer period of time. There current lack of accountability will worsen and we will be powerless to do anything about it. Accountability and transparency are already words that are not included in President Mohamed Nasheed’s book of democracy and his professed commitment to the people is getting replaced by his commitment to his “family business as well as resort owners and business friends in the cabinet”.

Fifty years is a long time in legislative term. If we leave it for twenty five years, we would feel more secure and it will always help us to make the businessmen accountable, as they would know if they abuse their ownership in any way they would not have the chance to secure it any further. President Nasheed is doing this only to secure the contentment of the businessmen, and he is not taking the security of the Maldivian people to heart. If he really had the interest of the people of Maldives he would not suggest fifty years and allow our islands to be devoured by stingy rich businessmen for such a long period of time.

Furthermore it is important to consult the general public before making such a decision and so far he has done nothing of the sort since he came to power. While a yes or no vote is necessary and in order, he keeps coming up with radical policies and political appointments and decision makings like a dictator. More and more suggestions for radical amendments of the law and new laws are becoming a common occurrence since Nasheed came to power. And to the surprise of many Maldivians who supported Nasheed these laws and amendments are suggested for the benefit of businessmen and other lobbyists who helped him to come to power and in the process he is neglecting the ordinary Maldivians who had voted for him and helped him to come to power.

Nasheed is belittling democracy in his presidential decision making and policy making process. Therefore Citizen Majlis, the Maldives Parliament at least should show some accountability and transparency in their behaviour. Before discussion of radical bills suggesting changes that will affect the Maldives economy and the people, the Parliament needs to find a way to take people’s ideas on board. Citizen Majlis should pave way for people to communicate with their Parliament members as in developed democracies. We call on the parliament of Maldives to arrange accessible venues for citizens to communicate with their MP’s through e-mail and telephone and also postal. At the moment only a privileged few has mobile numbers of their MP’s and there is no formally established way of communications for citizens to get their voice heard by their MP’s. It is absolutely important for such arrangements to be made immediately. But meanwhile we urge the people of Maldives to write and try to contact their Parliament members in any way they can and urge them to vote against this bill of extending the lease and ownership of our resorts for fifty years.

Leasing our islands to such a long term is not a solution to our problems. It will only worsen the opportunities for the future. We should never let our parliament to approve such a along period. We have been informed that President Nasheed suggested this bill due to pressure from his lobbyists which comprised of the major resort owners of Maldives, of which we do not want to name and shame these people as we are sure many Maldivians will know who they are. President Nasheed needs to find a quick solution about his slave like succumb to the whims of the businessmen in the Maldives. People are getting increasingly frustrated and disappointed by his commitment to the businessmen of the country instead of the people. This was definitely not how the Maldivians envisaged his promised Anneh Dhivehi Rajje will be.