If something is too good to be true, it usually is.. so is the BID Quality awards...

The following article was published to create awareness among Maldivian businesses on bogus awards and rankings..

Published first in May 2009
Re-Published in April 2010
Re-Published in October 2010

Please follow the link to Article and please pass on to people who believe in these Bogus Awards.

Corruption in the Open.......

Just few weeks ago I received a call from a relatively new company who calls them selves "ZEBRA CROSS'. They asked for an appointment and as we always encourage new businesses, we gave them an appointment.

They cam in right on time for the appointment, They were well informed about their product and the ideas were brilliant. Thee product that they were trying to market was 3 versions of Yellow Pages. A print version, online version and a mobile application.

There marketing materials were designed with care and a lot of professionalism expect for a large number of typo errors. They had three separate brochures for their 3 products and on one of them, the print version of the yellow pages and on pages 2 and 3 I noticed something unusual.

Well, the company is owned by Mr. Mohamed Luveiz, Mr. Abdulla Ziyath and Mr. Ibrahim Mohamed Didi.

The Profile says that Mr. Mohamed Luveiz and Mr. Abdulla Ziyath both hold positions at Invest maldives where Mr. Luveiz is the Head and Mr. Ziyath is the Assitant Director.

Strangely, Zebra Cross pvt. Ltd, owned by these two gentleman has been awarded numerous contracts by Invest Maldives. Including: Authentic Maldives branding campaign, IPA strategy, Marketing plan, copywriting and even the website www.investmaldives.org website.

This profile is enough proof that they abused their positions and they are constantly doing that by by using this profile to market their private business.

So what is ACC doing about this.

STO back dating Board Resolutions to fool Anti-Corruption Commission

We have received confirmed news that STO board members were back dating board resolutions to avoid charges against corruption. ACC has moved in couple months ago and when asked for board resolutions they have in fact back dated these resolutions with instructions from both Shahid and Soarey.

If ACC is doing their job properly ACC needs to investigate these resolutions and hold the board members who are responsible accountable. Back dating resolutions should be considered as fraud and due process needs to be followed and justice served.

These are serious issues and corruption needs to be wiped out from this country once and for all.

From Multi Party Democracy to a Single Party Oppression

Its been only 18 months since we all fought for democracy. After 30 years of oppression we finally were able to win back our freedom. But it gives me shivers to look into the future and think seriously of what our nation might become I come to one conclusion.

Adaalath. A Political party promoting nothing but Islam. Their Manifesto is Islam. So if our constitution says only Islam can be practiced in Maldives, the only party who can survive in the this, in the not so distant future, will be Adaalath Party. Anyone who defects from Adaalath could face the death penalty.

2013 will come. Those who love freedom should find ways and means to flee this country. Gather all you can. This is Afghanistan in the making and with the blessings from the very person who fought for our freedom. ANNI....

flee before you yourself face the death penalty.

Plans of bringing down MDP Government is on the horizon

We have received information from trusted sources that there is going to be more votes of no confidence in the parliament. To ensure that these pass through several under the table deals is being done. Recently we came across the Education Ministry buddies Ahmed Zareer (who holds various high ranking posts in this Governement) and Abdullah Salih (who used to be Ahmed Zareer's boss at Min of Education during the time of Golhaa) taking calls and meeting up.

Abdualla Salih who is part of DQP is negotiating with Ahmed Zareer and Ilyas Labeeb to ensure that votes of no confidence passes through. Ilyas Labeeb seems to be a major key in getting Adduans together. We have information that the price Ahmed Zareer and Ilyas Labeeb is asking for is close to a million dollars for this switch from MDP to DQP. They have planned this as a surprise.

More parliamentarians are in talks with several other parties including Seafood Musthafa, who is negotiating with DRP, Colonel Mohamed Nasheed who is in direct talks with Golhaa himself, Bonda ibrey, Kubey and last minute switch over of some crook parliamentarians. Alhan Fahmy's role when his switched sides was to disperse MDP members to various different parties.

Opposition is uniting to bring an end to the rule of MDP. God bless this country. Maldivians should take this as a lesson, "Do not just vote for the person your party puts in front. Evaluate the person before you vote".

MDP Government and it's Free Giveaways

Tune Hotels offered six islands in Maldives

By Lee Wei Lian

SEPANG, May 3 — The hospitality arm of the Tune Group, which controls budget carrier AirAsia, has been offered six islands in the luxury resort destination of Maldives where it can operate, said AirAsia CEO Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes.

AirAsia plans to start flying to the Maldives some time in the next six months.

Tune Hotels recently also announced plans to expand abroad, in Southeast Asia and Britain.

“AirAsia was invited to come and Tune Hotels was given six islands to build,” said Fernandes in a media briefing today.

A spokesman for AirAsia told The Malaysian Insider however that Tune Hotels has not decided yet if it will take up the offer.

Tune Hotels, a budget hotel chain, recently signed a RM746 million deal with London based Queensway Group to build 15 hotels in Britain.

Source: The Malaysian Insider

Maldivian Falls Victim to a Scam Again... !!!!

And Now another Maldivian falls victim. read article on haveeru

The following article was first published on Monday, May 25, 2009

This is exactly what I feel when a PC reseller in Maldives wins awards almost 3 consecutive years for quality. There are so many, more qualified PC distributors and resellers across the globe. Like IngramMicro or CDW or TechData. But why on earth would a plaque be awarded to a firm in Maldives for selling PCs. If it was beaches, luxury travel or fishing I can understand.

So, about a year back I did some google searching for the credibility of this so called “BID” award for Quality and Blah Blah…. And here is what I found.

1. Look up google for “business initiative directions” (that is what B.I.D stands for) and you find all sorts of web addresses under different domains listing the so called BID awards.To name a few

http://www.bid-paris.com/en/main.php

http://www.bid-org.com/menu.htm

http://worldquality.org/en/index.php

http://bid-planet.com/conbordes_archivos/index.htm

http://www.bid-quality.com/en/index.php

http://www.bid-qualitysummit.com/en/index.php

This is loads of more websites belonging to BID so they will get you the moment you type “Business Initiative Directions” on google.

2. Now let’s look at the sponsors of BID awards and the magazines on which they publish about the awards

The Magazines:

http://www.hnova.com

http://www.brandazo.com

http://www.gperson.com/

http://www.centrexp.com/

http://www.neussner.com/

http://www.gatewaycnet.com/ - New (2010)

http://www.ideasb2b.com/ - (New 2010)

Don’t you find it a little awkward that all these magazines publish only news feeds form other sources. They do not have any genuine content whatsoever. Ah… except for BID award news just to amuse you.. And all these magazines is owned by Imapress. And to deceive people they have huge pictures of World leaders on the covers of these magazines that are printed only once a year. you get my point right?....

The Main Sponsor

http://www.imarpress.com

The website of Main Sponsor is worse. Look at that website, nothing but hyperlinks.

3. Ok… now the people who pay huge sums of money, travel to Geneva and Paris and fetch these awards.

Do you guys know any company by the name Jorio Coca Cola Corse. You get the idea rigt? And if you look up google for the “Jorio Coca Cola Corse” you will only find this company only on the websites that I have highlighted at the top. Maybe the real name of Coca Cola Company is Jorio Coca Cola Corse. I don’t know! but these guys received the award.

The second type of deceit is when they use a small branch of a huge company and award them. Here is one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkfePm4HoBQ&feature=channel_page

But that is Indian Oil (Mauritius) and they don’t make a big fuss out of it. They have not even mentioned about this particular award on their website.

http://www.ioml.mu/en/news/

The third type: Who pay thousands of dollars each year to buy this award, well literally, and showcase it at their sales centre.

http://www.megachiplive.com/company/news-events/president-congratulates-megachip-maldives

And unfortunately one is a Board member of Dhiraagu and the other one is an Elected MP.

http://www.megachiplive.com

I wrote to Megachip about a year ago explaining all what I have found out above but they never bothered. Go see the awards at Megachip showroom, Majeedi Magu

Cheers to all....

And Now another Maldivian falls victim. visit link

And the OSCAR goes to! ....%$#$%-----ILYAS LABEEB

To read more about "OSCARS" click here

Scaling down the Expat Labor Force

It seems that the current government is pretty keen on getting down the number of expats working in Maldives. They seem to making life difficult for each and every Maldivian in bringing expats for employment. One thing I have come across is that when the Government is so keen on getting the number down the government should at least try and get their head expat count down.

We have a pretty huge reserve force at MNDF who the people are paying huge amounts of money for their pay, family medicals, accommodation, food and other incentive. This reserve force can be utilized for community service like keeping our infrastructure up and running. For example; how about sending all laborers at Male’ Municipality and hand over that work to MNDF. I believe there will be hundreds and hundreds of laborers employed at Municipality.

The same goes with other government bodies. Instead of paying thousands of people who basically stay home give them some work to do. At least they would earn some after some sweat.

Is Megachip really a Dell Authorized Service Provider?

The recent appointment of Megachip as a Dell partner in Maldives is in many ways a very good initiative of the World's second largest computer manufacturer.

Megachip, a very capable company in the areas of retail and government tenders would be a huge boost to Dell's business in Maldives.

However, Megachip is not the only Dell Authorized distributor in Maldives. I did a little research into the legitimacy of Megachip's claims to be a partner and I have found out that there is a another partner is Maldives.

The question that came to my mind was, if there is another Dell distributor in Maldives why on earth aren't we hearing about them. So with the help Dell's corporate website I was able to search their contact by just typing 'Dell Maldives Partner' on google.

http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/ap/topics/contacts/en/sadm_contacts?c=ap&l=en&s=gen&~section=011

A company named Azimuth Pvt Ltd. So I gave them a call. The answer I got from them was:

"As Dell's business model is to concentrate on Corporate and Government requirements and not to do retail consumer business AND as our business model is very much inline with Dell's model where we concentrate on solution design and implementation we do not want to concentrate on consumer". I followed by asking why they did not want to have an out let at least. "We do not want to do retail as I said earlier, But we are in the process of opening a demonstration showroom. It is not going to be entirely Dell but as we are Partners for Oracle, microsoft and Juniper, we would be doing solutions presentations there. Ofcourse all this will be based on Dell hardware".

I asked if Azimuth is also an Dell Authorized Service Provider. "As to our knowledge Dell has not accredited any partners in Maldives to be an Authorized Service Provider or DASP as in Dell's terms". So I asked why Megachip has the "DASP" sign inside their service Center. "Megachip will be in a better position to validate that for you".

So I did try to validate this but with little luck. But I found the "DASP" policy online. Looks like Megachip has bit of a long way to go achieve the "DASP".

http://www.dell.com/downloads/ap/services/indirect.pdf