President Nasheed delivers his first speech to the People’s Majilis

The first democratically elected President of Maldives and the leader of Maldives Democratic Party (MDP), Mr. Mohamed Nasheed delivered his first presidential speech at the People’s Majilis (the parliament) today. Despite huge criticism by opposition political parties, the opening ceremony of the parliament for the year 2009 went smooth and as planned.

President Nasheed’s speech to the parliament drew attention on stabilizing the current economic downturn and managing subsequent shortfall of National Reserve as a basic priority of his government. “We will make our economy stable, allow foreign investments inflow and reduce irrational government expenditure” President Nasheed stated. According to him government expenditure was very high during the past three months. He said “we are obliged to proceed with the previous spending capacity of the government as there are unfinished projects by previous government”. He anticipated this spending may take another six months to complete. However he confirmed that his government will not go for borrowing from foreign banks, should they are able to tackle the economic crisis in the country.

“We will bring foreign investments equivalent to $500 million to cater for the basic needs of improving public sector development programs in the whole nation” President Nasheed stated. He explained that “these investments will help develop our roads, schools, health care services and enhance supply of safe and clean drinking water and better power facilities”. Government has opened a gateway for foreign investors to invest in areas of their interest in this country and an agency by the name of Invest Maldives has been entrusted within the government.

President Nasheed criticized the former government as ‘failure’ and quote “The previous government had sought money supply as the measure to tackle the economic downturn, and subsequently created much havoc in the economy. Printing more notes and injecting them into the economy raised the country’s debt over Mrf 4 billion in the year 2008”. He explained that we are facing short supply of US Dollars today as an adverse affect of printing and injecting more Rufiyya into the economic system. Further he said that wherever the Auditor General enters, number of cases leading to corruption and illogical expenditures start to unfold. He highlighted that last year alone huge amount of loans were sanctioned into the hands of very few people and quote as ‘politically driven’. He stated that his government will not borrow money from foreign banks and governments to finance these debts on Maldivian people rather he would introduce the country for more foreign investors.

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