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Another fishy fire in Male'
A suspicious fire in Male' has destroyed documents stored by the Maldives Ministry of Finance. This is the latest in a spate of fires that have consumed important Maldive government documents, particularly documents related to the fishing industry. The Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) fire in November 2003 incinerated many records, and last night's fire is alleged to have burnt Fisheries Projects Implementation Department (FPID) files and other records of the Finance department. FPID is the old name for MIFCO. The Maldive media announced that the fire started just after 10pm on Friday night and burnt for almost an hour before being brought under control by the NSS fire brigade. Last week, witnesses saw bundles of documents being moved into the building and unusually, President Gayyoom personally visited the scene of the blaze. Friday is a holiday in Maldives (the working week is Sunday-Thursday), and observers say it is an interesting co-incidence that the fires have all occurred on Friday. . This fire started in the midst of the government files in the northern section of the building which is accessed through a single door on Majeedhi Magu, Male's busiest thoroughfare. The building is known as the 'For Rental Building', and has been used by the government since the time of President Nasir in the 1970s. The Maldives Transport and Contracting Company rented the building for a few years and then it was taken over by the Ministry for Finance and Treasury which is under the control of President Gayyoom and his selected minister of state Mohamed Jaleel. Meanwhile, the main government dhoani-building site at Alifushi island in Raa atoll has been closed for over two years for unexplained reasons, with the government promising to re-open it. Skilled boatbuilders have been left unemployed. On 5 August, Haveeru newspaper carried a report that quoted Fisheries Minister Abdulla Kamaluddheen (also one of the two Majlis members for Male') saying, 'At one stage the government made a decision to re-open and run it, but what happened was private people showed interest, so we realised that our previous belief, that private people would not be interested in running the business, was wrong.' The Maldivian people are being asked to believe that the government has taken over two years to realise that dhoani production is a business! The present Maldive government is incapable of organising the country's crucial fishing industry. The lack of refrigeration facilties is a national scandal, and high quality Maldive tuna fetches only the cheapest prices in the main processing market in Thailand because it often arrives there in a rotten state. Gayyoom, and the ministers responsible for this fiasco, know almost nothing about fishing. They never visit the atolls except for ceremonies of adulation and, lately, to bribe and threaten people to vote for them. They don't understand the problems of the fishermen and their families, in fact, they hold these 'lower classes' in contempt. Like all snobs, these ministers are ignorant. Profits from the industry are skimmed by corrupt businessmen and government officials in Male', and the fishermen and their families in the atolls bear all the cost of the government's fraud and maladministration. The spate of fires is an attempt to remove evidence and protect guilty parties from prosecution in the future. The ashes and smoke from the documents will be part of the legacy of Maumoon Gayyoom's rule and its catastrophic failures. |
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Maldives Culture is an independent internet magazine of Maldive cultural issues.
Editors and translators: Michael O'Shea and Fareesha Abdulla, Australia
We invite contributions from Maldivians and others interested in Maldives.
Contributions and comments - mc_editors@hotmail.com
