Some of the many changes we need to bring to the county when a new government comes in!

When a new government comes into power on 11th November, we will need a complete rethink on how we run the government and how we run this country. A completely new way of thinking will be required. As a new government tries to trim the wasteful budget of the current regime and cut unnecessary recurrent expenditures, we need to restructure many ministries and offices. Below mentioned are few of the many such cases we need to address.

Full-fledged embassies should be run in only four countries:

The current regime has gone to extreme in wastefulness by establishing expensive embassies in unnecessary locations. I believe that full-fledged embassies should be run in four countries, namely, Sri Lanka, India, United Kingdom and Singapore. It will be suffice to hold trade-representative offices in the rest of the countries such as Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.

President to reside in Muleeaage;

Presidential Residence should be changed to Muleeaage instead of Theemuge. Muleeaage is big enough to provide a very comfortable residence for the President and his family. This would reduce the number of staff required and many other overheads. Theemuge could then be used for another pressing purpose – perhaps as the main campus of the “University of Maldives”.

Presidential retreat (Aarah) is an unnecessary luxury?

Ok our President should have a retreat. We could build such a retreat in Hulhumale or perhaps even at Funadhoo, but it would be better for our economy if we utilize Aarah as a tourist resort as a holiday-island for Maldivians (A resort for local Moldavians). This way we can reduce millions of Rufiya of unnecessary overheads, and at the same time provide a luxurious retreat for the President.

What about the Royal Luxury Yacht that Gayyoom has?

Yes, the presidential yacht built in Germany, at a cost of millions of dollars is rarely used. The incumbent President uses a fleet of speed boats and yachts and launches (one for each type of flower: Finifen Maa, Kudhi Maa, A Maa, etc.). Does he have time to use all of those? Definitely not. There are some yachts in his fleet that he hasn’t set foot on for the last decade. But even those yachts have fulltime staff and captains and so on. Is this manic addiction to waste taxpayer’s money? We need to auction off most of these speed boats and yachts (especially the big yacht). The president could have three speed boats (a small one, a medium one and a large one). That’s enough. The rest should be sold. I’m sure there will be many bidders from the tourism sector in this country. Imagine the huge amount of money the treasury could save in terms of reduced labor cost and maintenance cost when we reasonably reduce the presidential boat fleet and relocate the presidential palace to Muleeaage and relocate the presidential retreat (Arah).

Having 15 Atolls instead of 20 Atolls!

The people of Maldives should live in approximately 200 islands, over fifteen atolls. I would encourage uniting Haa-Atoll as one administrative unit and similarly unite Alif Atoll as one administrative unit. I would also encourage uniting Huvadhoo atoll as one administrative unit and also the union of Fua Mulah and Addu Atoll as one administrate unit.
This would let us save millions of Rufiya in recurrent costs – whereby we would have 15 Atoll Offices and 15 Atoll Chiefs instead of 20 Atoll Offices and 20 Atoll Chiefs. This would also cut bureaucracy – and even more importantly this would unite the peoples of Haa Atoll and Alifu Atoll and Huvadhoo Atoll and Fua-Mulah and Addu Atoll.

National Anthem!

The national anthem of our country fails to inspire the new generation of Maldivian. I feel that even the anthem “Wathan Edhey Gothah” compiled by our first president (Mohamed Amin) is also a better tune and a better anthem than our national anthem. Perhaps this wouldn’t be a very popular idea, but I feel that we need to think and debate whether we could change our national anthem.

No need for a “Planning Ministry”, but the planning process could be centralized at the President’s Office (PO):

It could be argued that there’s no need for a “Planning Ministry” but we could have a solid “Planning Section” at the President’s Office. The current practice is that various ministries such as the Construction Ministry, Planning Ministry, Tourism Ministry, etc, do various components of the planning process. This duplicates a lot of planning work and creates unnecessary bureaucratic inertia when it comes to planning. To avoid this, the planning process could be centralized at the President’s Office (PO), and this section could carryout their work based on feedback and data from various ministries. Then the PO could allocate various segments of the planned work to different ministries for implementation.

Restructuring MNDF and Police to prioritize Coast Guard and Civil Defense!

Our defense forces should be reshaped and reequipped towards the priority areas in terms of economic and civil priorities. I believe that the most important areas in the current defense setup are the civil defense areas such as the Coast Guard, Fire and Rescue, etc. We need to pool the bulk of our defense expenditure on civil defense. In the unlikely case of another country attacking us, we would be defenseless even if we spend our entire budget on military defense. So we should take Japan’s excellent example and concentrate more on civil defense and economic development. We should strengthen especially the coast guard to protect our fishing resources. Most of the defense work done by the current MNDF could be done even by the police. So we need a complete rethink on how we shape our police force and the MNDF and the civil defense component currently under MNDF.

No need for a separate ministry for “gender and family”!

Of course gender and family issues need utmost attention, but I in order to trim the number of portfolios in a future cabinet; we should remove gender and family from the cabinet list and create a “Department of Gender and Family” that could be operated as an independent department.

Ministry for “Mega Projects”:

Other adjustments could also be brought to a list of ministries. We could change the name of the planning ministry as “Min. of (Planning), Development and Mega Projects”.

Combining Housing Ministry and Construction Ministry / planning:

We could also combine housing ministry and construction ministry and call the combined ministry the “Ministry of Housing, Construction & Public Infrastructure”.

A ministry for "Education and Youth" and a ministry for “Sports, Arts & Vocational Education”!

We need to combine youth with the Minsitry of Education and form a ministry called the "Ministry of Education and Youth". The way we name certain ministries also shows our deficiencies in thinking. Let’s take the example of “Ministry of Youth & Sports”. By associating youth with sports, the current regime is saying that the youth of this country need to entertain themselves with sports while the regime does the serious work of running the country. Don’t get me wrong. I value and respect the role of sports, but perhaps it would be more appropriate to have a ministry for “Education and Youth”. Our younger generation is quickly losing their value system and their respect for our religion, history and culture. So why not have a ministry for “Education and Youth”! The Sports component could join with "Arts and Vocational Education" to form a ministry called the "Ministry of Sports, Arts and Vocational Education".

No need for a separate ministry for “Higher Education, Employment and Social Security”:

Similarly, I also believe that we do not need a separate Ministry for “Higher Education, Employment, & Social Security”.
Education Ministry can cover the “Higher Education” component and we need to establish a national employment agency that would keep a database and any relevant indexes on employment and social security.

No Ministry for “Islamic Affairs” but a "Guardian Council for Islamic Affairs and Dhivehi Culture"!

It is due to this reason that I’m against the idea put forward by Gasim Ibrahim to create a ministry for Islamic or religious affairs. It is better to have an independent body such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. Everything important need not be politicized as ministries. Gayyoom has created ministerial positions just as gifts to his cronies and friends and family; not out of developmental necessities. This culture of political rewarding needs to be changed by any new government. We need to join the work of promoting Islam and at the same time promoting our culture. Why not have a "Guardian Council for Islamic Affairs and Dhivehi Culture"!

No need for a separate ministry for “Atolls”:

Having a separate Ministry for the “Atolls” and then again a “Home” Ministry suggests that the people of the atolls are somehow inferior to those that reside in Male. In a future government we need to combine the works of the Atolls Ministry and the Home Ministry as one single ministry. This unified ministry would be named as the “Home” Ministry.

No need for a separate ministry for “information and arts”:

Ministry of Information and Arts is basically used as a propaganda tool by the current regime. If that ministry is inherited by a new government it could again be used as a propaganda machine to mislead the public. As Dr. Hassan Saeed has mentioned in his manifesto, we need to privatize Television Maldives and Voice of Maldives. There is no need to bring “Arts” under a ministry. If TVM and VOM are privatized and if we establish an independent organization to promote arts, then there is no need to have a ministry for “information and arts”. Arts component could go to the "Ministry of Sports, Arts & Vocational Education".

No need for a separate ministry for “transport and communication”:

I believe there’s no need to have a separate ministry for transport and communication also. Of course we need to have department-level regulating bodies to regulate transport and communication but to give it a cabinet portfolio seems wasteful and pointless. To establish the kind of inter-island and inter-atoll transport network that coalition-candidate Anni is talking about, we need to establish a responsible body that could both regulate and promote transport and communication activities in the country - taking those two areas to new heights. But we do not need to glamorize every important activity with a ministerial portfolio.

Do we need “population” control or should we leave population to grow freely?

When we talk about “gender and family” we need to rethink our current stand on population control. Is it helping our economic development? In a way we have limitless land, so if we let our population grow freely, that could help our development instead of controlling population growth.

Specialized “Advisory” Committees under the President’s Office:

We need to appreciate that our biggest resource would be to build a “knowledge-based” workforce in the country. It is not enough to say that our biggest resource is human resource. Instead of just saying that, we need to work towards using that human resource. It is critical that a number of special “Advisory Committees” are setup at the President’s Office. There could be committees for “Information Technology”, “Civil Defense”, “Youth and Culture”, “E-eEnterprise”, etc. Each such Committee should be headed by a senior official of the PO. But the rest of the ‘advisors” in the committee would be picked from the private and public sector, not as full time employees but as members who would be on standby, and who would be paid on a per-sitting basis. We have plenty of young and knowledgeable people who can contribute immensely on the huge task that lies ahead – to develop this country on multiple fronts and even in new areas.

Compulsory Civil Defense service of one year for every student who completes O’Level or A’ Level exams:

As in the case of countries such as Singapore and many European and Asian countries, we need to make it compulsory for all youth who complete grade 10 or grade 12 to serve for at least one year in the Civil Defense area (such as Coast Guard, Fire & Rescue, Emergency Relief, etc.). This would prepare the youth in vocational areas and also make them in to a more disciplined workforce.

Not a “Minister” but a “Secretary”!

When we mention the title “Minister” we immediately get the connotations of power and influence. We need to change this mentality and mindset. One thing we could do to initiate the change of this mindset is to change the title of “Minister” as “Secretary”. This is the case in many developed countries such as the United Sates and the United Kingdom. For example, instead of having a Home Minister we could have a Home Secretary and instead of a Defense Minister we could have a Defense Secretary.