When we were writing the Constitution, one of the first decisions that was made by the Special Majlis was whether the Maldives would continue to remain as a unitary state or whether we would opt for a federal state. After much discussion and debate, the Special Majlis, by an overwhelming majority, decided that we would remain a unitary state for a number of good reasons. It was one o f the few things which did not create many divisions in the Majlis. I remember very clearly that the Special Majlis actually adopted a resolution on this issue which was proposed by me. This resolution formed the basis of the development of the Chapter on Decentralized Administration of the Atolls found in the Constitution.
In this resolution, I proposed that the Maldives would remain a unitary state, but each region or atoll would have locally elected bodies and officials to take care of local matters and make decisions on local issues.
When the actual chapter was being drafted in the Drafting Committee, we swayed back and forth trying to determine what level of decentralization, and what powers would be devolved to the various authorities. On the one extreme we had total local governance, with wide ranging decision making, revenue raising and spending powers accorded to these bodies, including certain legislative powers. On the other extreme we had total local administration, which would have brought in central level control on these bodies as far as decision making was concerned.
After much debate, discussion and serious consideration , and after about 7 different drafts, the Committee decided to adopt a versatile model into the Constitution. This model would allow the gradual introduction of local governance, depending on the readiness and strength of the bodies, the prevailing social, economic and political conditions. The tweaking of the sytem would be by law passed by Majlis. To facilitate this, we made two important provisions in the Constitution. One is that we stated that the details of the local government/decentralized system would be prescribed by law by the Majlis, and the other is that we provided for the Majlis to delegate carefully defined legislative powers , such as making by-laws, to local authotrities.
The vision was that initially we would introduce largely administrative powers (an extension of the Executive) to the bodies and gradually move towards more and more powers as these bodies gained maturity and people came to terms with local adminsitration and governance. The other consideration was that of revenue and resources. The legislation was to provide guarantees of revenue raising and distribution of Central revenue to these bodies.
The setting up of this system was left entirely to the Legislature, and had nothiong to do with the Executive. It certainly was not meant for the President to do it via political appointments. It could easily be argued that what we are seeing now is extra-constitutional to say the least.
What we are seeing now is troublesome. It is trouble some because the President has created a set of political appointments which will interfere with decisions in service delivery. For example, the question arises as to whether a school principal should take directives from the Local Councillor, The Deputy State Minister, the State Minister or the Minister of Education. The Constitution (in the absence of a law on local governance) certainly makes provision for the Minister of Education to be held accountable for the actions of the School Principals. If, to get around this, we are to say that the The State Minister in the Province and hence the whole chain of command from there on, will take directives from the Minister of Education on matters related to the schools, this amounts to reverting to the same system of Atoll Chiefs and Katheebs as before.
What, in effect is happening is, because Katheebs cannot be directly controlled by the President anymore (they are in the Civil Service), and the Constitution does not make provision for the President to appoint Atoll Chiefs, the political government is trying to find a way around this to control the populations in time for elections. This has nothing to do with service delivery or efficiency or involvement of the local people. If it is local governance, where is the voice of the people?
It is simply Recentralization (ousting even cabinet ministers from the loop) in the name of Decentralization. Tumultuous days are to come.
Why do you and Kutti write such LONG posts? You guys know well that in today's modern hectic and busy life we don't have time to read only but the essentials. So even if you got something important to say, I am afraid people are just gonna miss out on your point!
ReplyDelete@DCJ :
ReplyDeleteSome would advance the thesis that modern ignorance among the educated in the Maldives stems from an unwillingness to invest the time in reading and analyzing about issues of import, and depending on half-cooked journalists, reporters and commentators to do the thinking for them.
I write my blog for the discerning and not for the mindless. Alteratives can be found on various online newspapers such as Haveeru-online.
I too agree with you Ibra, its good article. Current katheebs do not corporate with government, still act as if they are appointed by Maumoon.and work to defame the government. Therefore it forced to P.Nasheed to appoint someone under the name of councilors or any name.. Councilors are appointed under the powers given to president and should not keep them once the council bill is passed and elected as per the constitution. He has promised not do that even if the constitution allows him to appoint people.
ReplyDeleteThe reply to DCJ is the reality. We have half crooked journalists .Haveeru “Professional” Journalist had made three news heading and written separately the interview given by, Funnabus. Former presidential candidate Dr.Hassan Saeed. haveeru worked to sustain the maumoon government before, now they are working to discredit Nasheed government and put someone who look like former zaeem. These journalists just parrot people sayings and call it news and reports, lazy to do investigative journalism, politically sided with one party or the other. Always work to spreading false propaganda and do not have valuable information and opinion on all sides in their writings.
Dhitv Friday show with Masuood, according the report they telecast Maldivian are in starvation due to lack of rice, bank of Maldives come to its current situation because of not former government but current government, bla bla etc.. Nothing good has happened. They don’t want believe, Gayyoom has not left a good foundation and have to start everything from zero. These journalists do not consider facts on economic, social and the reality of the country, just merely write what they hear from someone
I believe Nasheed government has done some mistakes but some disagree with that, its fine .In democratic countries no government will get much popularity and face criticism. We don’t have always politically charged and emotional
The biggest fear I have right now is that with all these "mistakes" that is being done by the current government is giving good reason for people to start regreting the decision they made to oust Gayyoom. Everyday there is something that this government does that gives a cold chill in our spines. Some of the elders are saying that they are having a sense of Deja-vu. They say Anni is following exactly what qayyoom did when he came to power.
ReplyDeleteAnd that sad thing is a lot of us, instead of trying to be vocal about the surrent mistakes and trying to rectify it, they are justifying these actions by comparing to similar things done by the previous regime.
It was us who created a golhaabo. Us citizens. By keeping quiet as long as our wishes are fulfilled irrespective of whether our neighbor was being tortured.
This time we must ensure that we did not throw out golhabo only to make way for a "keynsingh".
Ibra needs to attend a writing class. This indulgence in verbosity is a terrible insult on poor, illiterate third-world citizens.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous (Feb 21, 5:29 pm):
ReplyDeleteI could attend a writing class, or you could attend a reading class. I wonder which activity would better our lot.
Variety is the spice of life, they say. There are plenty of websites and blogspots which pays homage to certain intellects. At least the cyberspace is a free world.