Raajje News Blog

#Maldives: September revenue collection is 2% less than forecast, announced Maldives Inland Revenue Authorty yesterday. In a fact sheet publicized yesterday, MIRA reported that revenue collection in Maldivian Rufiya for September totalled 6.6.3 million and 29.2 million in dollars. This was an increase of 16% over September 2011, but a decrease of 2% from the projected value. Tourism land rent contributed 36.4% to total revenue, while Goods and Services Tax contributed 28.6%. Business Profit Tax contributed 12.3%, Tourism Tax 11.3% and Airport Service Charge 4.3%. Over 50% of US dollar revenue was from Tourism Land Rent while Tourism Tax contributed 15.6%, thus making it 65.7% YS dollar revenu directly from the Tourism industry. These figures is brings into sharp focus the high dependence of Maldives on the tourism industry, and industry now being threatened by former President Mohamed Nasheed and his friends overseas.Mohamed Nasheed has consistently carried out campaigns over...

Male', Maldives Once again, the Maldives has been hijacked by the militant supporters of Mohamed Nasheed, who resigned from his post as President on February 7th. Maldivians watched in dismay this morning as Members of Parliement who support Nasheed ripped down the national flag and removed the chair of the Speaker of Parliament Abdulla Shahid. Maldivians have been waiting for over three hours to listen to their President's State of the Nation Address at the opening session of Parliament. Nasheed's MPs continue to occupy the Speaker's Chair and block the entrances to Parliament Chambers, in their attempt to obstruct President Mohamed Waheed from delivering his address. President Waheed arrived at Parliament on schedule at 10 am and is awaiting in the Speaker's Chambers for the opportunity to address the nation. Outside the Parliament, Nasheed's Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) have attacked police lines, injuring four officers seriously. Media reports that 18...

Male', Maldives. Yesterday's face-off between President Mohamed Waheed and his predecessor Mohamed Nasheed on the Male' streets ended with a victory for Waheed, but perhaps a victory that may be very temporary. Backed by an impressive display of people power over 50,000 strong, President Waheed condemned Nasheed's Maldives Democratic Party as terrorists, as enemies of the state. Alluding to the massive economic losses under Nasheed, Waheed warned that "There is no place for people who destroy our economy." Clearly, public support was behind Waheed. The MDP Women's Protest staged yesterday afternoon to balance the scale was vastly outnumbered, mustering about a 1,000+ to the National Unity's 50,000. The maximum Nasheed had been able to gather at his rallies was just over 7,000, even including his supporters arriving from the islands. However, what is most evident from the past two months of protests and rallies by all political parties, is that Nas...

Male', Maldives. President Nasheed has played what he hoped was his trump card against the December 23rd civic protesters. In a twin play, Nasheed stated that he would not ask UNHRC N. Pillay to apologize for her blasphemous attack on the Qur'an, timing it with the start of a program of "free" health care for all Maldivians. The equation he offered the thousands of Maldivians who protested against his regime was: Accept blasphemy against Islam, and receive "free" health care. Its interesting to follow the Nasheed Government's logic in the Assandha medical program. It begins with a sale of national assets to foreign interests. This is accompanied by inflationary government budgets and huge national debt. The two together then form the justification for a revised foreign exchange rate and its basis. The rising dollar is followed closely by the introduction of GST. GST is then almost doubled, squeezing the impoverished economy dry. GST earnings are then...

Male', Maldives. President Nasheed's Tourism Master Plan is well underway as the year 2011 comes to a close, the target being to force out all Maldivian businesses from the Maldivian Tourism industry. The first step was begun last week, by a Presidential Order to Tourism Minister Mariyam Zulfa to close down all spas in tourist resorts. The reason being given that it was an act to accede to demands by the Civic Coalition which staged a historic 20,000 strong civic protest against Nasheed on December 23 in Male'. However, the Civic Coalition in no way called for the closure of spas. It demanded the closure of all places of prostitution, a valid demand anywhere in the world as prostitution is an illegal trade in human flesh. Nasheed and his government cleverly twisted the Civic Coalition demand and then took it to the highest extent by ordering a ban on all spas. The Maldivian tourism industry's response to this has been very mild, not surprising perhaps as Nasheed h...

The Total Revenue figure estimated by the government for 2009 is 9.5 billion mrf. That is the total. And this total includes what the government terms as Capital Revenue of 3.8 billion mrf. Capital revenue being an euphemism, a fancy term for the sale of those supposedly non-existent assets which Maumoon did not create in his thirty year rule. The mid-term budget 2009-2011 proposes to generate 5.7 billion rufiyaa by sale of capital assets not created in the last thirty years. As Yaameen said in one his speeches, those who do not know how to run businesses make money out of selling the capital assets created by those who did. But we divert. If we deduct the 3.8 billion mrf. to be generated from the whole-sale liquidation of the wealth not created in the last thirty years; something that looks increasingly unlikely to be approved by the current parliament, the government’s revenue figure for 2009 is 5.6 billion mrf. Let us at this juncture, ignore the fact that expenditure is rising fas...

The state of the Maldivian economy has declined sharply since November 2008. The Maldives Monetary Authority reported in May 2009 that the real economy has decelerated in 2009. The MMA’s April 2009 Quarterly Economic Review projects that GDP growth rate will be -0.3% in 2009, as compared to 5.8% in 2008. It projects that real output will contract by 1.3% in 2009. The MMA forecasts tourism to decline by 11% in 2009 while the construction sector is projected to decline by 24%. This tale of economic collapse continues, as the MMA reports that consumer price inflation in March 2009 was 11.2%, much higher than the 8.2% inflation in March 2008. However, President Nasheed speaking to press on May 20th, just days after this MMA report, stated that his government had brought national inflation down from 12.06% to 10.38% since last year. Inflation is mostly contributed by the price of food, transport, health and housing. The MMA report used data up to May 5. President Nasheed also told press on...

The parliamentary election is over. The Attorney General is sacked. The euphoria has not quite died down. There are parliamentary seats to be contested and political arguments to heat up. Yes, the near term political scenario is definitely not for calm weather. The eyes and minds of the Maldivian people are still stuck on the political radar. But what of the economic reality? The world is in an economic mess. Some of the biggest banks of yesteryears are just memories now. The books of big, and I do mean BIG, corporations who have never had a bad year, let alone a bad quarter, is full of red ink. Homes are being foreclosed. Jobs, in the millions are being lost. Academics and officials agree that US, EU and will have negative growth this year. Even while China and India will still register positive growth, albeit in a modest manner, it is estimated that the World Economic Output will register negative growth this year. The first time since the Great Depression. This is big, huge, massive...