To read more about "OSCARS" click here
Monday, March 15, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
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.
Monday, January 11, 2010
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.
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".
Monday, November 23, 2009
Not Corruption but Daylight Robbery - STO episodes....
When you think of corruption the first person to come to our minds is Yaamin... When we all believe and know that Yamin has a hierarchy of loyalists who facilitates his inflow into his wealth. These corruption and whitewash machines have been in motion for the past 20 odd years and has built an empire for Yaamin along the way and pocketing some for them selves.
It was this governments first mistake not get rid of them in the first place when they had the chance. After just a year in power we are seeing these Yaamin's machines disguise themselves as MDP loyals and do havoc to places. A classic example is STO Shareef....
Like a plaque Shareef has spread the virus of corruption into the new management of STO. From a simple deal to million dollar deals, the new management of STO and relatives of this management are pocketing huge amounts of money under the watch of Finance Ministry including the ever strong State Minister Assad, the Minister Ali Hashim and even fooling Anni into thinking that who they have appointed are indeed working for the betterment of the people.
Tomorrow we will see light to the news of Megachip (The most corrupt Computer seller during Golhaa's regime who embezzled millions using corrupt tactics mostly at Education Ministry) practicing the same tactics during the current yellow revolution.
In the coming days you will hear about more corruption inside STO partnered by Soarey, Shad (Relative of Megachip family), Shareef and even Sana Mansoor.
I have begun to believe that this is "Wathan Edhey Goiy"....
Thursday, November 19, 2009
STO – Dhen V Hiyaanaiy - 2009
New Government, New heads of Companies and new wave of corruption. I think this is what we should expect just after one year in power by the current Government.
Yes, corruption is rife, it is happening. New Managing Director twisting and turning documents to favor their cousin brothers. Yes, tenders are re-tendered until cousin brothers come up with the right figure. And they just did. The tender has been submitted today and we will all see it getting awarded to the cousin brothers.
In the coming days you will be hearing more on the MD and the cousin bother’s episodes to exactly how they did it. In the meantime let us all join hands and sing along….
Esss Teee Oohh – Dhen Vee Hiyaanaaiy… Esss Teee Oohhh – Dhen Vee Hiyaanaaiy…
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wataniya - Life's NOT good for the contractors
Wataniya Telecom, a Middle Eastern telecom giant came into Maldives in 2005. When the contract was awarded a lot of Maldivian small businesses rushed to them to find work. As finding work on most of the islands is pretty hard and work is scarce, all across Maldives contractors were busy erecting towers, digging and doing construction for Wataniya Telecom so they would not miss the deadline, which was pretty ridiculous, and escape Government fines.
We have recently come to know that Wataniya or the the main contractor Fastcomms owes these contractor millions of rufiyaa and this has been in the Courts of Maldives for the entire life of Wataniya operational in Maldives. So we investigated and this is what a contractor “Ahmed” who hasn’t been paid for over 3 years has to say.
“When we heard the news that Wataniya was awarded the contract to become the second mobile operator we felt very happy as we can raise funds for our youth clubs and other activities by working as subcontractors for Wataniya. When we first went to Wataniya we were shown the main contractor Fastcomms. So as instructed by Wataniya we worked for Fastcomms”.
Who is this Fastcomms. Fastcomms is a Maldivian firm who won the contract to supply and roll out Wataniya network.
“When we didn’t get paid for over six months we filed the case against Fastcomms. But later we found out that Wataniya did not pay Fastcomms so we started to work with Fastcomms to file the case against Wataniya.”
“This case has dragged too long. Maybe because Wataniya’s Lawyer Dheena Hussain is related to the former first Lady. That is what I think. . Even the son in law of Maumoon works with Dheena .”
“But now the court has ruled that Wataniya has to give the money to Fastcomms and we will get paid then. To date Wataniya has not paid Fastcomms, even after the court ruling. So we have obtained a copy of the verdict and we want this to go to all newspapers. People should know what kind of people Wataniya is”
“I wish in this country we can file for damages. Our families have suffered because of that. Our business went bankrupt. In other countries I can file for damages”.
“We have worked with Dhiraagu during their tower project and they always pay on time. Government should not let foreign companies destroy our lives.”
“So today we have decided that we will give this verdict copy to media and tell all Maldivians what kind of a company Wataniya is”.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
