Must an atoll council be an atoll council?

The term 'Atoll Council' as defined in the decentralization bill currently under debate in the Majils has led to a political maelstrom and a war of words between the President and his Attorney General, who believes the councils are unconstitutional. Below is what the Constitution says on the subject.

Article 230 (b): "For the purpose of governing the administrative divisions according to the principles of decentralization, the President has the power to create institutions, posts, island councils, atoll councils and city councils, as provided in law."

Schedule II of the Constitution lists out the 'administrative divisions.' The list comprises 21 divisions: the existing 20 atolls of Maldives plus Male.

In the light of Article 230 (b) above, the President has the power to create 5 entities, three of which are councils. The question is where do these councils belong?

Let us start with 'island' council, probably the least controversial among the three. There appears to be no dispute that the word 'island' here refers to the existing administrative islands of Maldives (which in some cases could be more than one in a geographical island, e.g. Fuvahmulah).

Defining 'city' council is also not that controversial. According to common perception, Male is the nearest to a city that the Maldives has. Further, Schedule II lists Male as an administrative division. Since it is the only division in the list which is not an atoll, putting 2 and 2 together, it is reasonable to assume that 'city council' belongs to Male.

This brings us to the bone of contention –atoll council. Attorney General Dhiyana Saeed appears to favor the view that an atoll council should belong to one of the 20 atolls listed as administrative divisions in Schedule II. However, this is not how the draft bill on decentralized administration sees things. According to the bill, an 'atoll' council need not belong to just one administrative atoll. Rather it could belong to the 2 - 4 atolls in the provinces proposed by the bill.

The decentralized administration bill is currently in the Majlis, where members will decide the issue and pass the law. After that it could perhaps go to the Supreme Court for a ruling on whether the law is constitutional.

Random Thoughts on Decentralized Administration Bill

The draft of a bill for decentralized administration in the Maldives has been compiled by well-known lawyer Husnu Suood and is now available for comments at www.local.gov.mv. As stated in the introductory articles the purpose of the proposed law is to facilitate people living in the islands to decide their affairs in a democratic and answerable way, and to enhance their quality of life socially, economically and culturally. While the bill is comprehensive, professional and sound, it may not be out of place to share one's opinion on it. So here are some random thoughts.

Chapter I: Dividing into provinces: Merging atolls into a few larger provinces is probably a good move, in view of the dwindling island population.

Chapter II: Atoll Councils: Some of the powers mentioned in article 9 are not actually powers, rather responsibilities or duties. For example, reporting and supporting. Yet others are actually services. For example, providing transport and maintaining food security.

Chapter III: Island Councils: Same comments as for Atoll councils.

Chapter IV: City Council: Same as for Atoll councils.

Chapter V: Provincial Minister: Article 64 requires the State Minister to be answerable to Majlis. However according to the Constitution, only a cabinet minister can do that. Article 65 says employees of government ministries are answerable to the provincial state minister. Thus such employees are answerable to two different ministers. Is this practical? Article 72 gives the Local Government Commission (a political body consisting of provincial ministers) the power to dissolve elected councils? How can one assure that this power is not misused against councils controlled by opposition parties?

Chapter X: Reporting: While councils implement activities delegated by central ministries, there is no provision in the bill for reporting back on those activities.

Lexicon of Decentralization and Regionalization

For centuries the representative of the Sultan in the atolls had the title ‘Vaaru Veriyaa.’ This Dhivehi term translates to something like ‘Head of Revenue,’ and gives a clue as to his job responsibility. Certainly the Vaaru Veriyaa’s post was not service oriented, though his administration did include service oriented officials –katheebs who led prayers and buried the dead, and naaibs who delivered justice. Written history gives very few clues as to any other services provided in the island by the central government. Historically therefore decentralization will be a paradigm shift in atoll governance. The terms decentralization and regionalization are not synonymous and they are also associated with other buzz words. How many of them do you know?

Regionalization: The process of dividing a political entity or country into smaller jurisdictions (administrative divisions or sub national units) and transferring power from the central government to the regions; the opposite of unitarisation.

Decentralization: The process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people or citizen.

Political decentralization: Giving citizens or their elected representatives more power in public decision-making.

Administrative decentralization: Redistributing authority, responsibility and financial resources for providing public services among different levels of governance.

Fiscal Decentralization: Dispersal of financial responsibility and ensuring adequate level of revenues

Economic and Market Decentralization: Privatization and deregulation to shift responsibility for functions from the public to the private sector.

Deconcentration: Shifting responsibilities from central government officials in the capital city to those working in regions. It is the weakest form of decentralization and is used most frequently in unitary states-- redistributes decision making authority and financial and management responsibilities among different levels of the national government.

Delegation: transferring responsibility for decision-making and administration of public functions from central governments to semi-autonomous organizations not wholly controlled by the central government, but ultimately accountable to it. This is a more extensive form of decentralization compared to deconcentration.

Devolution: transferring authority for decision-making, finance, and management to quasi-autonomous units of local government with corporate status. Devolution usually transfers responsibilities for services to local governments that elect their own elected functionaries and councils, raise their own revenues, and have independent authority to make investment decisions.

Vaaru Veriya: Originally an official responsible for revenue collection in an atoll, later took on the functions of atoll chief.

Khatheeb: Originally an island official responsible for religious services, later taking the role of island chief.

Naaib: An island level official responsible for justice, later replaced by Qazi and finally magistrate.

Atoll: Originally a ring shaped group of islands, later an administrative unit consisting of a 3 to 17 islands.

Rah: originally an island, later an administrative unit in an island, some islands having more than one unit functioning as a Rah –example Fuahmulah.

Decentralization: Will it Reduce Civil Unrest?

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?