One Year On... Have we wiped out corruption and favoritism

After more than four long years of struggle to bring about democracy and rule of law to this nation , the people who sacrificed their time, energy and money celebrated the fruits of their labour on 11th on November 2008. A struggle that was painstaking and tiresome. A struggle that witnessed the torture of many and the true force of people power.

Today we mark the 1st Anniversary of the first democratically elected Government in the history of Maldives. 365 days of rebuilding the nation. 365 days of rehabilitation. 365 days of hope and 365 days of democracy machine put to action.

During these 365 days we have witnessed the formation of several public/private and public companies to deliver on the promises of our struggle. We have seen major projects rolled out and we have appointed new heads to almost all government and public companies.

But, after 30 years of the plaque of corruption, are we sure that we will not see a new strand of the plaque once again. We are witnessing a trend emerging and if the current institutions do not keep a closer eye on the events unfolding before their eyes, we might as well sink into a deeper corruption hole than the previous regime. The trend that we are seeing today includes.

- Owners of major businesses are appointed as Chairman's, CEO's and Board Directors. - Mega projects being controlled by proxy companies

- Associations and NGO's manipulating financial documents to obtain government funding

- Managing Directors favoring the businesses of their brothers and finding ways and means to disqualify others.

These are just few very basic symptoms of the plaque that we lived on almost all of our adult life. Unless we, as the people who went onto the streets try and stop this we will see the whole system falling into chaos once again.

So let us all join hands and voice every event and incident that can or will lead to corruption.

Happy 1st Anniversary to Democracy.