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People in sleepy outer islands of the Maldives, once docile and obsequious, suddenly in 2006 began to seize and besiege island administrative offices, demanding harbors, schools and sewage systems. Few people then or now associated this with decentralization or the lack there of. But listen to the voice of an islander:
"It takes 15 to 20 years to lay a sewage pipe or a sewerage system. Now we run towards what we call democracy. We close down the island office and everything stops. We turn desperate, write numerous letters and make numerous pleas before things get done. This is begging." –a resident of Eydhafushi, Baa Atoll, speaking in a documentary produced by Project Hope.
What the young man says contrasts sharply with conventional wisdom, which said unrest in the islands is the result of democracy. Here he says the unrest is the result of government neglect –in other words lack of good governance. Islanders were driven to unrest by desperation and the realization that seizing island offices was the only way they could get the attention of the government.
Decentralization, Selected Islands Development, Focus Islands, Development Regions, Development Zones: these are the ingredient of the cocktail that the government promised to the islanders for the past 25-30 years, but never even attempted to deliver. While paying lip service to decentralization, the government actually moved in the opposite direction –concentration of more and more power in the Atoll's Ministry.
Ministry of Atoll's Development headed by Abdulla Hameed made full use of developments in communication technology to further spread its influence to the islands. In progressive steps, VHF sets, telephones, fax machines, mobile phones and the internet reduced Atoll Chiefs to innkeepers and Katheebs to telephone operators.
Elections to Atoll Development Committee were dispensed with and it became a committee appointed by the Atoll Chief in consultation with Atoll's Ministry. Lacking popular support, the committees became rubber stamps for the Atolls Ministry.
It is reasonable to assume that lack of credibility of Katheebs and the committees is at least partially responsible for the civil unrest in the islands. Will decentralization solve the problem?
3 comments:
well we would never know YET.... we cant say anything based on our history as this is purely new.
no definitely not. the civil unrest cause not because of centralization. it is because of lack of political awareness among the citizens. one of the major cause for civil unrest is strong culture domesticated by past 30 years administration. It may take few years to eradicate this strong culture. besides decentralization is good process to start to minimize substandard among citizen.
Former govt was also committed to island and atoll counils. this was part of Maumoon's reform agenda and published in the Road Map,Gayoom was also committed in establishing an Institute of local Government for training and research.huge sums of money was allocated for this progrm. With Gayoom's commitment and DRP support this was enshrined in the new constitution.When Waheeduddeen was changed to Sports Ministry, Gayoom specificaly and publicly released a statement for his continued commitment to Island and Atoll Coucils.Thasmeen who was lukewarm towards local government also had no choice but to support decentralization and councils. But regional decentralization will not work in the Maldives. but to get a bigger scale, maybe some atolls need to be made bigger. ie Huvadhhoo Atoll and Bodu Thiladhunmathi etc
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