Maldivian parliament commences, new govt begins work

Male: After two tumultuous sittings marred by protests by the opposition MDP, Maldives’ parliament commenced its first session of the year today, indicating that the new government may finally be getting on with work. Almost two months after Maldives’ first democratically elected president Mohamed Nasheed was overthrown in what he called was a coup, the parliamentary session was held smoothly and some important bills in the pipeline were debated. [caption id=“attachment_263650” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“New Maldivian president Mohamed Waheed. AP”]  [/caption] The parliament’s proceedings were stalled on its first attempt to meet this year on 16 February as lawmakers of Nasheed’s party refused to allow new President Mohamed Waheed from speaking. On its second attempt on 9 March, the new president delivered a truncated address amidst protests. Today, as the proceedings commenced smoothly, the names of the nominee for the post of Vice President and cabinet ministers were sent to the Parliament for confirmation. The Deputy Speaker of Parliament said the names have been sent to a sub-committee of the Parliament. The Parliament first debated a bill sent by the President on forming of new ministries. It also debated on another bill on signing the SAARC Convention on Cooperation of Environment. The MPs also discussed a bill proposed by a member for amendment of a bill that will pave the way for judges to have allowances after the retirement. Another session will be held tomorrow. Minister of Finance Abdulla Jihad has said that this year’s budget requires an immediate amendment, and the matter will be discussed at the Cabinet tomorrow. Replying to questions posed by some MPs at the meeting held between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Mission currently in Maldives, Jihad said there was not enough money in the government reserves to finance the huge projects mentioned in the budget. “The suggestions made by IMF will be proposed at the cabinet meeting tomorrow. The decision to submit the budget to Parliament will be made after that. As member of the cabinet, I would say that the budget needs amendment,” Jihad said. Stating that the country is in an economic slump, he said while 67 companies require public spending, several projects by these companies cannot be commenced while others cannot be completed due to lack of finance. He said that the budget assigned for Island Councils is not enough, and they were already requesting for more money. However Finance Ministry can only cover the recurrent costs of these councils for the next two months. Both IMF and the government believe that the budget will be short of about Rf 2 billion as the estimated revenue will not be received. PTI