Taming the citizens in charge of Artificial Citizens

A friend of mine told me nowadays the fisherman does not bring the whole catch at once to the fish market- to control the price of fish and by the end of the day sometimes he has to throw the excess into the sea! That’s from the primary level.

When you look at the tertiary level the topic that appears in most headlines is 'shortage' of dollars and the resulting black market. (A little bit of research here and there (wiki, tourism ministry, stats) gave some figures. Basically, on average a tourist stays for 8 days and spends about 755 dollars (or foreign currencies). From July- September 2009 tourist arrival is 44332, 52388, 50396 respectively. A rough calculation on how much dollars (or foreign currencies) should be entering into the country from July- September gave a staggering 1.2 billion; 1.2 billion in foreign currencies should be circulating for various transactions within the tourism industry alone in the Maldives!)

You might say we are corrupt from top to the bottom. Of course we are and we will be fools if we expect power brokers in high places to address such issues in a society that flourishes on nepotism, greed and all the vices you can name.

Anyway, that got me to thinking and I stumble upon this e-book on power and accountability while googling..... It is based on United States, but it’s worth a read if you are interested in taming the wild corporate tigers and businesses. A quick skim through the book gave the insights below

A company or registered business (Artificial citizens) accepts the benefits, rights and protection of the system to pursue profits.
In return it is an obligation and a responsibility of the entity and its owners to conduct their business in a manner that is consistent with public welfare.

If we want a vibrant society that is based on justice, fairness and equity, it is the business of the public to see that the above ideals are a reality. Sadly, civil society action on corporate accountability, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility is almost nil and we need to change that.

References

Power and Accountablity by Rober A.G Monks and Nell Menow

Comments

A Nation Sold Out!

We often talk about how corrupt are the politicians and those who are in high offices. I would say all of us are bonded through the chain corruption. First we sell our vote to the highest bidder, digging our own grave. The members than sell his/her vote to the Ultimate Buyer for money, position, power and so on The Ultimate Buyer, instead of meeting our demands, controls the members through the chain of corruption; we become helpless and our hopes for a decent life and a prosperous future gone. We cry, and whine saying how corrupt is the Majlis, the government and each and everyone who are in positions of power. After 21 days* we forget about everything and go about our lives and in between if some need arise, we beg the member or the Ultimate Buyer the member or the Ultimate buyer fulfills the need, on the promise of selling our vote again. It’s a vicious circle My request to Mps - to include vote buying/selling undue inducement as a criminal offence ...

1000 islands, 1000 opportunities

Often we are bombarded with messages stating, we do not have any natural resources and therefore we are poor. Just because we do not have oil does not mean we lack natural resources to move our economy forward. When you think of it, the 1000 more islands are the natural resources we have. We are using less than 150 islands for industrial purposes. The rest is untouched and unused. Tourism has shown that each island can be turned into multi million dollar cash generating investments. However, the problem is policy makers seems unable to think beyond tourism. Policies in assigning islands for industrial purposes need to be reviewed and prevent over concentration on tourism in a single atoll. Within the atolls (including Kaafu and other atolls that has high concentration of tourism), islands can be leased to fisheries, agriculture, education, health, and many more other industries and make them easily accessible for people to go for jobs or to acquire goods and services. Build...

Can we, women of this country, have some space to grow food and offer food security to our family?

Illustration by Aishath Rishtha Translation: “When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money” 2014: Think about it? In 2014, I started writing a book using census and all available economic data on every atoll including data on how many uninhabited islands each atoll has. I thought that showing demographic, geographic and economic data will make people realize we need to do something about abandoning such rich resources for a congested living in Male’…. I shared the first draft with friends and mother thinking everyone will be very pleased. They weren’t happy. Major problem seemed to be - “just throwing data on people is not enough… we need to talk about some solutions. Take food security for one…..” 2016: Write about it? The book (Falhu Aliran Muy)- now twice bulky, with economic history (on the suggestion of Late Ali Hussain of Novelty Printers) and 11 interventions on future of ato...

Voice of Maldives Islands

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