When Politics Gets In The Way of Reform

Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to fight the “the wrong-headed ideas, bureaucratic nonsense and destructive culture” that led to riots across England earlier this month. David Cameron said a sense of personal responsibility had been eroded over many years by a welfare system that reduces incentive to work and “the twisting and misrepresentation of human rights.”

“The former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair responded saying the “muddled-head analysis” of the riots risks producing the wrong policy prescriptions. He dismissed the argument that Britain is in the grip of a “moral decline,” saying that problems lie with individuals and communities rather than society as a whole.

Critics of the Cameron Conservative coalition government argue that they want to introduce policies to reverse the welfare system.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, a British journalist and author wrote:

"For the left, and for liberal papers like Guardian, the culprit was the Tory-led government and its “cuts,” the program of rigorous reduction in public spending in response to unprecedented public debt. But it’s hard to see what effect these cuts can really have made in the little more than 15 months since the coalition government took office under David Cameron.

A more telling (if not quite logical) response is the good old tu quoque: look who’s talking. How can the poor be condemned for looting household goods while bankers and financiers have been looting from the public on a far vaster scale than any teenage gangsta could dream of? This is a variant of Brecht’s “What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of owning one?” and it must be admitted that in the age of AIG, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and Madoff, most of us have our Brechtian moments. And all of us here bridle when anyone is upbraided for greed and dishonesty by our Members of Parliament, who turn out to have been pilfering the taxpayer for years with their fraudulent expenses. "

The state has to punish those who break the law- whether they are looters on the street or greedy officials who robbed public finance or made money out of decisions which have had a profoundly damaging impact on innocent people.


The IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research, - the UK’s leading progressive thinktank gives an analysis of the ideological differences and outlines the case of the present coalition government's assault to cut the universal benefits and services.

What Went Wrong?

Here is what president Mohamed Nasheed said to a journalist from the UK. (link)

"Every evil you think a society could have has found a home here in the Maldives,” Nasheed says. “We have inherited beautiful buildings from the previous regime, but almost empty coffers. There is an acute shortage of housing, sanitation, water, health, education, transport and basic infrastructures for a decent life.”

In addition, 30% of the country’s youth (and 75% of the population is below 35 years old) are now heroin addicts.

What has gone so horribly wrong to bring our country to this situation?

After 30 years of high GDP growth that has made the rich very happy, how did 40 per cent of our population manage to stay below the poverty line of less than 1 USD a day? How did this laid back society living in relative peace find explosive growth of illegal drugs?

Is this the same country that former foreign minister Abdulla Shahid is talking about, praising its development and human rights at every opportunity?

If it is a bad government that has brought our population to such a national nightmare that should never be repeated, president Nasheed owes it to our nation to explain to us who is responsible for such behaviour and how it can be avoided for our future generations.

Job Centres with Moral Obligations

According to a Minister of the Nasheed government, opening up job centres in Maldives will help young people to find jobs. The minister alluded to the fact that providing useful information to job seekers is a moral obligation of the state. It is heartening to know that one ministry is thinking about its moral obligation.

It is the duty of the government to look after its citizens. So it is more than a moral obligation not only to match jobs but to create them as well. For 30 years our government believed that their job was only to preach. They were not interested in creating jobs or maintaining them. During this same period our per capita GDP grew from US$ 300 to 3000. It is a remarkable achievement- a testament to the industrious nature of the private sector. Amazingly, during this same period the rich became richer and the poor became poorer. Thanks to our government who spent the money that could have been used on development of public services to the likes of the US 7 million yacht, seeking world class luxury normally seen in the oil-rich sheikdoms.

According to a recently released Human Rights Commission report around 12,000 families in Male’ do not have their own housing and are forced to share accommodation with other families or make do with temporary living arrangements. Housing has become so scarce that a quarter of all families in Male’ share just one room and almost 70 per cent live in accommodation that fails to meet ‘adequate housing’ criteria on the basis of overcrowding. These conditions are so appalling that these apartments are considered as slums going by the UN definition.

Presently there is an ongoing row between the Home Ministry and Civil Service Commission(CSC). The CSC claims that it had been asked to dismiss over a thousand civil servants from its employment by the home ministry; an allegation, which the ministry has denied. CSC says that they have also been asked to be make redundant a total of 381 civil servants over the age of 55. Under the Civil Service Act, the commission has the authority to retire civil servants over this age. The Home Ministry refutes this statement saying the CSC asked for such a list. The public does not know who to believe. It appears this government thinks people are a disposable asset because they do not have the strength of the unions to back them. Regardless of the type of restructuring that is taking place in the decentralisation process, those who have loyally served must be given priority to remain employed or be given the necessary training and help to look for other work. In this effort, no politician of the Nasheed government should feel it is only their moral obligation to serve public good. It is their duty and job for which they are paid to work in the interest of the public.

Reforms could turn on its head

First, condolences to the family of the young man, Samir Abdul Mueen, who was killed by gang violence in Male' yesterday.

President Nasheed's government has had enough time to initiate tough action to hunt down the leading thugs of gangster groups responsible for such violence and lock them up after due process of the law. But this government like the previous Gayoom government is soft-pedalling and we have lost one more person to the senseless violence. Unless these insane criminals are sternly dealt with, no one is safe in Maldives.

The campaign promises of MDP for a good life in the 'other Maldives' can only be realised if the coalition leaders exercise good judgement and take timely action. The recent incident of sending riot police to remove 13 striking workers from an operating resort has shown the lack of sound judgment of the former home minister Gasim Ibrahim, a key partner in the MDP coalition.

The striking workers are not the nation's enemies. The strike would not have gone to that extent if not for the inaptitude of the resort management.

If such incidents get repeated in the tourist resorts, Maldives will turn into a pariah paradise. Managements and workers have to find a way to work amicably and resolve disputes in civility.

The Maldivian peoples vote has defeated the mass manipulators of Gayoom's fascist government who deprived the people justice and their rights for thirty years.

Urgent measures must be taken now to restore the public's trust on the government.

President Nasheed has personally suffered the torture and injustice of a brutally unjust government. Many people have lost their lives in unexplained and questionable circumstances in the state's prisons. Even Evan Naseem's murderers convicted by the court to death are roaming free in Male' instead of being locked up.

President Nasheed has only a short honeymoon to put things right. I agree that he should call for dignity and respect to the former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom as he has done. But as our president, he also has to be the leading voice calling to bring to justice those who perpetrated serious crimes with incriminating evidence.

During MDP's campaign Ibrahim Hussain Zaki, the current special envoy to the president spoke about creating a "truth and reconciliation committee" to start the healing process. Nothing has been done on this promise as though it is not urgent enough.

President Nasheed got elected because the majority of Maldivians wanted change and a just government. Many believe that president Nasheed has good intentions. But good intentions without decisive and strong leadership will not deliver the promised changes. While ministers should have the authority to work independently and be held accountable, the president should be kept informed timely of such situations as the deployment of riot police to use force against the public.

To make governing more difficult, president Nasheed has to muddle through coalition politics. We knew the challenges are formidable but failure should never be considered an option due to our desperate plight.

MATI should respect workers rights

According to a Minivan News report, "Maldives’ Tourism Employees Association (TEAM) has "no right" to make demands for labour rights enshrined in the Employment Act, secretary general of the country's leading resort owners association has said on Saturday.

Sim Ibrahim Mohamed from Maldives Association of Tourism Industry (MATI) made the comment after a leaked letter shows he called on the Tourism Ministry to inform resorts that TEAM does not have “any mandate” from the ministry.

The letter, which says TEAM's demands are "unwarranted, unlawful and unnecessary”, also urges the ministry to “caution the media about publishing or broadcasting stories that are biased and defamatory”.

MATI should not resort to bully tactics.

The Maldivian tourism industry has benefited from cheap labour in Maldives. Most of the tourist resort owners and operators have made handsome profits at the expense of the workers because workers rights have never been protected in Maldives.

While the Maldivian Government has taken membership of most the UN organisations, it has failed to take the membership in one of the most important organisation; The International Labour Organization (ILO). ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with labour issues. In structure, the ILO is unique among world organizations in that the representatives of the workers and of the employers have an equal voice with those of governments in formulating its policies.

Under the MDP coalition government, the Minister for human resources Hassan Latheef has now confirmed that Maldives would join the ILO before Dec 7th 2008.

We now have the opportunity to address worker issues such as unfair dismissals and refer to labour tribunals.

MATI should get over its arrogant attitude and advocate to give workers their full benefits without pushing them to take mass industrial action through work stoppages.

Impose truth tests on our presidential candidates

Here is an excerpt from an article on NDTV.com .

"Forensic tools like polygraphs or lie-detection tests are not just for criminals and terror suspects. Many in the corporate world are opting for this technology for pre-recruitment screening and also post-employment, for integrity check and zeroing in on fraudsters.

These are no isolated cases. Several top corporates, including MNCs, are opting for this technology to keep out the bad eggs. "

India is the biggest democracy in the world and some of their top corporations will have financial strength greater than the entire reserves of our country Maldives.

There will be no harm done to us if we follow their steps of good governance.

After decades of dictatorship and political stagnation, now everyday is a new beginning that will decide the fate of Maldives and its people.

In order to weed out the evil characters before they capture the power on our national stage, the State must impose truth telling tests by the polygraph. Then we will know what kind of people our leaders are, where they stand on different issues and what matters to them most.

In the United States, where there are 47 million people without health insurance, read about a truth test in one state that wants to tackle their health care problems.

If leaders of corporations should be put to polygraph tests to determine their truthfulness, the same measure should be applied to national leaders of countries who carry greater responsibility. National leaders entrusted with the well being of people's lives should be held to a higher standard than corporate leaders.


In the case of Maldives, the two presidential run off candidates- DRP's leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and MDP's leader Mohamed Nasheed should be polygraphed to test their truthfulness.

Here are some pertinent questions on the issue of drugs- the biggest appalling problem in Maldives.

• Are there any Maldivian Government officials complicit in drug trafficking or in anyway involved in the drug supply chain?
• Do you have the political will of what it takes to stop drug trafficking in Maldives?
• Do you believe that during the last three decades abuse of drugs and drug addiction has reached epidemic levels among the young people in Maldives?
• Is it true that many people accuse the Government of failing to stop the inflow of drugs into Maldives?
• Do you agree that illegal drugs is the cause of so much of gang violence and increasing robbery in Maldives?
• Has drugs become a national security problem?
• As president would you keep the convicted drug traffickers incarcerated to serve out their full term without any early release?

The bumpy road of reform for Maldives

Maldives has embraced the presidential form of government that is practised in the United States of America. The old Constitution has been amended to separate out the powers; the executive, the parliament and the judiciary - and structure the society as a representative democracy with individual rights protected by law. Thus, for the first time in our history, we begin the arduous task of carrying out multi-party elections to choose our next president who should be sworn in on November 11th of this year according to the revised constitution.

The constitution requires that every Maldivian should be a Muslim and so Maldives is a 100 percent Muslim country. The Maldivian Government and its leaders have always used Islam as a political tool to control and manipulate the 350, 000 citizens living on 200 of the 1192 islands of this country that looks like a dotted chain scattered in the Indian Ocean.

Maldives needs the financial aid and grants from the West and the flow of their tourists to bring in the foreign currency. Therefore, it is not surprising that pressure was made to bear on the Maldivian Government who have been forced to liberalise and bring in the political and social reforms. Thus an autocratic regime is being unravelled with the introduction of the necessary independent institutions designed to create a just society with the appropriate checks and balances of power.

Over the last three decades the GDP of the country has increased from $ 300 to $3,000 per capita. This shows remarkable progress but equally revealing is another more starling aspect. The political and business elites who are resident in the capital Male' and control all businesses and tourism have largely continued to enjoy the benefits of the economic growth and become astronomically rich while the hard working people in the outer lying islands have remained relatively poor. The poor and the needy have become victims of a grossly unfair system and they rely on the benevolence of the rich and powerful in Male' to provide them adequate medical treatment.

Politicians in Male' are not out to serve the nation and its people. They take up a job only to make money and they thrive on the job because of their love for money and power. The Government in Male' is broken and needs to be fixed. It can only be done by a demanding citizenry who knows their rights and will settle for nothing short of what they are due.

As our country faces the first multi-party presidential elections, it is worth remembering that the "majority rule" is often described as a characteristic feature of democracy, but without responsible government it is possible for the rights of a minority to be abused by the "tyranny of the majority".

The presidential contenders contesting for this year's election should know that they must fulfil their promises should they win the election. An inapt Government has taken the citizens for granted for far too long and now their patience has run out. If the politicians cannot inspire the people to unify around common causes to build up a just society and a system for equitable distribution of wealth, then the road ahead will most certainly be a bumpy one for Maldives.

Rising religious tension

One of the biggest dangers that Maldives will face in the future will be religious intolerance within its own community.

Last Friday a number of Maldivians left a mosque in Male' when they knew that Dr. Afrashim Ali was to recite the sermon and lead the prayer.

While everyone has right to go to any any mosque they like, the refusal to be led by a particular Imam raises serious questions. To the liberal Muslims, those who refuse to be led by Dr. Afrashim who holds liberal views including on music that has aroused controversy will be seen as radical conservatives.

We have already seen the consequences of the religious divide in Hinmadhoo and Male' where a group of people followed an uncompromising separatist view of practising Islam.

Maldives is one of the most intolerant countries in the world, in terms of religion. The Maldivian government will have to decide on Imams that will be acceptable to all, and if that cannot be achieved they may have to have dedicated mosques for different Imams. We will then be practising divide and rule at its best.

Tolerance of religious differences must taught in schools and practised in the country by politicians if the people of our country are to live in peaceful co-existence.

Making more money with less fishing

An AP report reads, "At a time when a quarter of the world's fisheries are considered depleted, can commercial fishermen make more money by fishing less? A study published in the Friday edition of the journal Science says they can, with one condition.

They must be in a cooperative fishery, like those operating in New Zealand and Australia, where individual fishermen own a share of the total harvest _ known as individual transferable quotas _ rather than the competitive fisheries more common in the United States, where it is a race to catch the most fish.

The idea is that when there are more fish and no race to catch them, fishermen spend less on fuel and other costs chasing far and wide to fill their nets, and can concentrate on delivering a high-quality product to the dock, said lead author Quentin Grafton, research director at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at Australian National University."

Read more here.

In Maldives, tourism has grown significantly and currently accounts for 33% of GDP, a quarter of total employment and more than 60% of the Maldives' foreign exchange receipts.

Fisheries is the main activity outside of Male and the tourist islands. It employs 19% of the country’s labour force but accounts for only 6% of its GDP. Fisheries exports are mostly canned and fresh tuna, which is the second largest source of foreign exchange for the country.

Maldives needs to develop the fishing industry. Maldives has been graduated from LDC status by the United Nations in December 2004 to "become" a Developing Nation with a three-year grace period ending in November 2007. Since our economy is highly dependent on imports which will deplete our foreign exchange it is necessary to intensify our efforts on development of fisheries and our agriculture.

The cooperative fisheries is an interesting idea from which the Maldivian fisherman can benefit to improve their livelihood and alleviate poverty. The fisherman can form cooperative societies like many other developing countries. They can also set up their own marketing and distribution networks. Such cooperatives can undertake other income generating activities with financial support by the government, or foreign donor agencies where necessary.

New realities for Maldives

These are exciting times for our nation and our people are living on the edge. Frantic work has been done to convince our people that there is a political system that will solve their problems.

In other words, we are made to believe that it is the system that caused the problems. Therefore, the system needed changing.

The verdict by the majority of those who voted is that they want a presidential system of government.

This is a defining moment for the history of Maldives. We shall see another hybrid system taking shape to replace the existing hybrid. To me, this exercise is a sheer waste of time.

We are now at a turning point in our history. It may turn out for good or it may turn out for worse. Merely expressing good intentions will not guarantee good results. Our sense of reality will be reflected in the world events that will affect our lives in one way or the other.

If our model of economic development is based on making impulse-based decisions as we have largely been doing up to now, some of the problems of our past actions are bound to continue with serious consequences.

Let's take one example: Housing.

In the 1970s when Male' became full and more land was needed to house a growing population, first we dug up the dead and put up the living in their place.

Next, we reclaimed the shallow breakwater taking the shoreline of Male' close to the reef edge. When the seasonal tidal waves started affecting the nearby homes, we sought help from Japan and barricaded the vulnerable areas of our island with huge tripod stones. Now we have lost the white sandy beach around Male.'

After that, we took over Viligili, a former tourist resort for our housing and later undertook massive reclamation to make Hulumale against huge foreign borrowing while we still have large uninhabited islands that can be used for housing, industrial development, infrastructure and ports.

We may soon run out of space to bury the dead in Male' as the multi-tier burial grounds are fast filling up and our housing problems are still not over. Soon we may be given fatwas for speedier recycling of graves.

We still can't provide affordable housing to the poor. In spite of impressive economic growth that continues to make our rich even richer, many of our citizens are unable to afford their own homes.

The pride of man makes him love what he owns, one of the most prized asset being one's own home. Therefore, for Maldivians to move away from becoming a species of tenancy, paying rent eternally to the superior landlords, the government has to come up with plans for affordable housing directed at the lower tier of society.

In a country where land is considered as a means of subsistence, it is essential to provide the security of a land estate to every individual. This way the citizens of our country can genuinely claim ownership to the land they call home.

Regardless of our hybrid system of political governance that gets evolved, the peoples dream for a better life requires forward thinking and determined action.

Now our political landscape has entered an era of pork barrel politics where politicians will need to satisfy their constituents who elected them by fulfilling their promises. This will become a reality for Maldives because the basic essential services and development are not provided on an even basis to all the islands.

At every future election, the increased aspirations of the people will be the agenda that will be carried by the contesting members of the parliament.

In the absence of clearly defined national goals and policies of development and a dedicated civil service team to deliver the results, the newly emerging trend will bear a heavy burden on an incompetent government.

Our government should stop playing 'divide and rule' - a tactic that was used by past colonial masters to suppress and control the natives of the lands that they captured in the quest to build up their empires.

Our political parties should induct capable young talent into politics creating a self-renewal process, so that the political leadership remains vibrant and the most dedicated and the best in our society can become top politicians to lead the country for the good of everyone.

Right now, we see just the opposite of this happening. Even foul-mouthed loons who have no respect for humanity are lurking around disturbing our peaceful communities. Political parties are only interested in buying votes either by lavish spending or by making promises with no intention to fulfil them.

The result is the election of many self-serving politicians who are squandering opportunities to bring about the much needed social and political reforms.

We desperately need our brightest creative minds to step forward to serve our community. We need to bring back discipline and excellence into every aspect of our work and our life.

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity and we can leapfrog on the path of prosperity if our leaders exercise good judgement. But good judgement is not only an intellectual attribute, it has to match the political reality as well.

John W. Gardner, the president of the Carnegie Corporation, in an address said this:

"The most important moral of all is that excellence is where you find it. I would extend this generalization to cover not just higher education but all education from vocational high school to graduate school.

We must learn to honor excellence, indeed to demand it in every socially accepted human activity, however humble that activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity.

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."

Economic growth has become a secular religion

According to an article authored by Professor Robert H. Nelson who also wrote 'Economics as Religion,' "The reason Americans have had such a long-standing separation of church and state is that they have had powerful common values, apart from official church doctrine, that have helped to hold them together.

There have been shifts in the vision of America over time, but through its history, American secular religion has been based on a belief in democracy, capitalism, free enterprise, and economic progress."

Through out the world the American dream is hailed as the best model of economic development based on the free market theory of capitalism.

So it is with great religious fervour that developing countries who are in need of financial aid from America and other developed countries follow the economic growth of the much heralded US model.

This American economic religion has helped greatly to resolve what Robert Nelson calls 'the market paradox.' The market paradox arises from the fact that an economic system has to be based on a considerable degree of honesty and altruistic behavior, but it must also encourage individuals to pursue their own advantage in the market.

Economist Milton Friedman once speculated that free markets and American-style religious pluralism have gone hand in hand, stimulating both economic growth and religion.

We are at a time in history when increasing affluence generated through the free market initiative has enabled us to live longer and healthier lives more than ever before.

It has generally allowed a shortening of working hours and therefore more time for individuals to spend on leisure. Economic growth is also closely related to the development of science and culture.

For all the benefits that we have received from economic growth, we still find that we have to grapple with poverty, malnutrition and disease that has not been eradicated.

While direct attacks on economic growth are rare, increasingly we hear of the damages caused to environment, the inequality of wealth distribution, and the unhappiness caused by the constant pressure to compete.


United States itself exposes this glaring contradiction.

What an irony it is that the city of the stars, the city of the rich and glamorous is also the homeless capital of the United States. Los Angeles has about 4 million people while nearly 10 million live in Los Angeles County, which embraces a sprawl of 88 cities. Los Angeles County is the second biggest urban concentration in North America after the big apple, New York.

A report released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimated that 82,291 people were homeless in Los Angeles County on any given night in 2005, with about 48,103 of the county's homeless living within Los Angeles' city limits.

The United States has powerfully demonstrated that economic growth alone does not solve society's problems such as poverty.

As explained in 'The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth,' by Benjamin Friedman- a professor of economics at Harvard University, the market economy does not automatically guarantee growth, social justice, or even economic efficiency; achieving those ends requires that government play an important role.

In other words, there is a role of government in promoting growth and making sure that it is the right kind of growth.

The problem is that this goes against many American economists who tend to have a strong aversion to advocating government intervention.

Their basic presumption is often that markets generally work by themselves and that there are just a few limited instances in which government action is needed to correct market failure; government economic policy, the thinking goes, should include only minimal intervention to ensure economic efficiency.

But as we have seen in the US homeless example, the results on the ground do not bear that out.

Thus, there is a convincing argument that governments do have a role to play to bring out a more sustainable and an even handed development that will benefit everyone from the rich elites to the poor across all sections of society.

Therefore, governments need to provide adequate intervention to ensure economic growth gives a better life to everyone, without leaving growth entirely to the Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' of the free market to decide how growth and development should take place.

Countries that need to deal with poverty and other aspects of social inequalities will have to call upon their governmnets to influence measures that will redress the imbalances rather than entirely depending on the free market to do the job for them.

'Creative destruction' - A modern management mantra

Creative destruction, introduced in 1942 by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, describes the process of transformation that accompanies radical innovation.

In Schumpeter's vision of capitalism, innovation by entrepreneurs was the force that sustains long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power.

Creative destruction epitomises the power of capitalism. The absolute relentlessness of creative destruction and entrepreneurship has become a defining feature of modern day free market capitalism.

"In a free economy, they never stop—never. Schumpeter wrote that all firms must try, all the time, "to keep on their feet, on ground that is slipping away from under them."

Someone, somewhere, is always trying to think of a way to do the job better, at every point along the value chain. Whatever has been built is going to be destroyed by a better product or a better method or a better organization or a better strategy.

This is an extremely hard lesson to accept, particularly by successful people. But business is a Darwinian process, and Schumpeter often likened it to evolution.

The creative destruction can occur within a large innovative company (big companies like Toyota, Microsoft), it can also to happen with start-ups, particularly since they now have so much access to venture capital.

An example of how this 'creative destruction' has happened in Maldives would be the case of Maldives National Shipping Limited.

After a prolonged difficult period of running old ships, in 2001, three other staff and me (Mohamed Hilmy) were abruptly changed from our Singapore jobs to Male'. This part is quite typical of the capitalist's creative destruction and I have no argument on that.

Here is where the issue is:

After we were changed, the new management set out to make a case that Abdul Nasir who worked under me has misused funds and that some bills were missing as the new management could not find them.

Since MNSL had shifted office, old records were kept in a store. For several months, Abdul Nasir was made to look for missing files and bills. Even though Abdul Nasir managed to somehow trace all the bills and showed them to the new management, they retained them for Audit but again declared them missing later.

They went on and prepared a statement of missing bills as unaccounted finance and forced Abdul Nasir to sign the statement. Whether it is right or wrong, once a staff member under me is held to account, I have to accept the responsibility for their actions.

Abdul Nasir has explained all this to the Anti-Corruption Board of Male'. He has shown the missing bills to them from the copies that he maintained with him .

There was no misuse of funds as cleared by the Anti-Corruption Board, as well as by an experienced independent auditor and a separate Singapore Audit firm. The auditor and the audit firm were both appointed by the Directors of MNSL earlier in 2002 for the same purpose on 2 difference occasions.

Yet, someone is selectively leaking the earlier accusations to the press to put Abdul Nasir and me in bad light.

Abdul Nasir voluntarily offered himself to the parliament office yesterday (ie the following day the issue was discussed in parliament and telecast the same night) to explain once again all of what he did with the Anti-Corruption Board for over two years.

Why does MNSL continue to do this?

My own feeling is that within the new management there are people who crave public glory by putting other people in bad light, completely disregarding how the company has operated in the past.

This is a reflection of capitalism in decay. More about this aspect in another post.