Govt. to give Rf.150, 000 for every staff laid off

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

one bilion dolar genna habaruge fotoNo. of Civil Servants needs to be reduced to 18,000 – President

The 32,000 civil servants need to be reduced to 18,000 as a means of minimizing government expenditure and to redirect and reshape the government’s fiscal policy, President Mohamed Nasheed has said.

The President made that statement while speaking on the government’s fiscal policy at a rally organized by Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) held at Kalaafaanu School on Tuesday night.

Speaking at the rally the President said those civil servants who are made redundant will be given Rf. 150,000, lump sum, from the government budget, to help them to get back on their feet.

The President said he was fully appreciative of the difficulties civil servants would face when made redundant. However, if the number of civil servants is not reduced, the people not having any jobs would suffer greater difficulties, he said. The President also said the people would not receive the full benefit of the government’s fiscal policy unless the number of civil servants is reduced.

“The civil service needs to be transformed to an 18,000 strong force, well paid, energetic and able to work long hours; I am not talking about dismissing the amount between 32,000 and 18,000 tomorrow, our objective is find a suitable mechanisms that change the civil service to our vision by 2011, I am being very honest here, the government will have to allocate funds in the next year’s budget to provide for those made redundant, those made redundant will be given a lump sum of Rf.150,000 from the government budget , in order for him or her to make a fresh start and get back on their feet, God willing, government will afford them that opportunity, our objective , is not to cause discomfort and agony for any person” President Nasheed said.

President Nasheed further said, at present, the government’s income was not being distributed fairly or justly. He revealed that government’s income was around Rf.7 billion out of which around Rf.5 billion was spent salaries of people employed in the service of the government. As such a large part of the government earnings is spent on 32,000 or so people, he said.

“The population of Maldives is at least 350,000 people, 5 billion rufiyaa from the government earnings is spent on providing salaries of just 32,000 people, then to do every thing else we have just 2 billion rufiyaa, whether it is to provide a table for a school or to provide medication for sick person in bed or to provide a book to a student we have to make do with 2 billion rufiyaa, the question that comes to my mind is that do we let go of the rest of the people , over 300,000, in order to protect the interests of 32,000 people, are we not to consider the welfare of these thousands of people” the president said.

The President went on to say that the government wants the people to earn their livelihood in a dignified manner and to live a clean life. In this regard, he said he intends to change the government’s fiscal policy in a new direction.

“It has been our objective to provide a clean and dignified lifestyles for the people, all our policies are based on this philosophy, our aim to completely transform Maldives in to something else, we have changed the country’s political system, what we did to achieve that was huge, today, we working on changing the country’s economy and fiscal policies away from what it was in the past 30 years, to establish systems and mechanisms that will allow us to follow in the foot steps of world’s developed countries” President Nasheed expressed.

Responding to remarks of opposition MPs at the Majlis yesterday, that in the past 30 years, government never reduced salaries of employees; President said it was not his intention to do what the previous government practiced and that government of the past three decade never failed to arrest anyone ‘if they opened their mouths”.

The rally was attended by Vice President Dr. Mohamed Waheed, Foreign Minister Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, senior government officiers and senior MDP members.

Reader Comments

  1. I think president Nasheed is trying to misinform people as usual. he is talking about 32,000 civil servant only how about their families? assume an average family has 4. then he is talking about 1,28000 it is not small population. You can imagine what will happen if government reduced civil servants up to 18,000.

    Posted by Arah | August 19, 2009, 8:36 am

  2. I’m pleased with the brave and wise decisions being made by Mr.President and his vigourous cabinet. God willing, if government carefully takle with this sensitive economic downturn duly, then we would experience better days in futute. President Nasheed’s ambition to take the country to a higher level is not somthing out of fantasy. Unless these changes, both political and economic, are taken our country would perish way behind least developed countries. Go on Mr. President, waste no time making right decisions.

    Posted by Ahmed Azleem | August 19, 2009, 11:46 am

  3. I think president is all talking nonsense.If the 32,000 people benifit there is an average of 5 dependants behind each civil servant to benifit from that income because Maldivians live in joint families.If a government worker is sacked today he is making a family starve.The last government didn’t do much to improve the private sector in the Maldives so still those who are joining the work force prefer to join the civil service because it’s a more secure choice for their families.If president is sincere he should first reform the private sector and make it more benificial for Maldives work force to get a decent income and live a respectful life.The only private sector is tourism in the Maldives.Even in this sector there are no workers protection laws in the Maldives and what ever is there,they are not implemented.Most of the workers are just treated like bonded labourers in these so called resorts with minimum wages.There is no ‘protection of women in the work place’ laws and they get just expolited.This is the situation of workers in the Maldives

    Posted by athif | August 19, 2009, 4:31 pm

  4. These are Fake statements. I heared him saying “in less than seven days, I will have an office representing all the Ministries in all seven provinces” As of today he could arrange only Education Ministry to have an office in North & South.

    Posted by Moosabey | August 19, 2009, 9:43 pm

  5. Azleem, you must be one of those elite class guys in Maldives, and such a drastic cut on employee may not affect you, cause you maybe earning from a resort of from one of those multi story buildings.

    Beleive me, I stood for this man to “vote him in” for office, but If he does this, I will stand again firm to “vote him out” of office.

    Posted by Hassanbe | August 22, 2009, 8:08 am

  6. I think this is a good decision. we need changes otherwise we will be same like past thirty years. Every one knows, commonly we Maldivian lives in joint families and the one who do jobs they are looking after their whole family with the money they get from the government. If the government is reducing civil servants they are giving Rf.150 000 to the one who are made redundant. That’s great. So they can do something in which they can stand on their feet again and then they can look after their family as before. Government is taking that decision just to control our economic expenditure and it will benefits our Maldivians. Go ahead! That will be a great change.

    Posted by A teacher | August 23, 2009, 1:09 am

  7. When something is too good to be true its not true… President may say something but according to his press secretary we have to see the actual intention buried in his stomach. So this may be just a persuasive speech to disguise the masses who are suffering from all adversities. He may have portrayed 32000 as just 10% of the population whereas these 32000 supports almost 40-50% of the population as their dependents. I am deeply concerned with these type of falsifications by the top most person in this country, and I wonder when we will get relieved with this menace. The whole saga is that the current civil workforce is labeled as DRP loyalists, so the hidden agenda behind all this is replacing them with MDP loyalists…

    Posted by Riaz | August 23, 2009, 2:11 pm

  8. senseless, useless, talks too much and do nothing president we have. such a shame

    Posted by LUCK | August 31, 2009, 4:03 pm

  9. He is planning to cut down 14,000 x Mrf.150,000 = Mrf 2.1 billion . Does this make sense. I dont think so because he has already a deficit budget in hand.

    Regards

    Ahmed

    Posted by Ahmed | October 13, 2009, 11:08 pm

Post a comment

 characters available



The opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and commenters and do not necessarily represent the views of Miadhu News Daily. We do not take responsibility for the opinions, facts, or claims presented by individual authors or commenters, and reserve the right to moderate or delete inappropriate comments.

Miadhu Opinion Poll
  • Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.