Provinces are essential for good governance

The creation of provinces by the newly elected government turned futile due to the anticipated resistance from the Opposition. There is the talk of government expenditure and increase in government spending due to the larger number of political appointees. However a large proportion of these appointees were the councilors anticipated to bring a local level of governance by electing them through a local election. The intention of local level governance was based on good governance principles of empowerment of locals to participate in the decisions that affect their lives.
The form of decentralization the government is advocating is called “devolution” where sub national units of governments or provincial level governments are created and strengthened financially and legally to manage a designated province. This is the very first of a long phase of good governance. The aim of this strategy is to create more open, responsive and effective local governance, resulting in a representational system of local Island level decision making. By making provisions for local island communities and provincial level of governance the local islanders can effectively manage their own affairs. Additionally closer contact between central and local authorities can also be achieved, enhancing effective systems of local governance enabling local people’s needs and aspirations to be heard where by making the government interventions more socially accepted.
Sadly the Parliament has a majority of very young but charismatic members with very little experience on governance and local livelihoods. Some of them are just fresh graduates and many others have not had good education and hence cannot comprehend the importance of this. President Nasheed’s efforts are immense to advocate on these issues, however the opposition twists and turns the story. We need provinces as providing all services to the highest standards are neither feasible nor financially sound at island or atoll level. As a matter of fact the population would be too small to provide any services on a user pay basis. Another argument from the opposition is that there will be issues of resource allocation as most of the fishery resources are common to all Maldivians regardless of the island or atoll. I believe that this is not an issue if we look at the broad context of provinces. If all land and water is state property it will all be equal to all citizens. The opposition however is confusing federalism and decentralized governance. Federalism as created in some countries like Australia is totally different from decentralized governance. In Australia the Commonwealth was created by states to run their international and other affairs and hence this system and the model of provinces we follow for good governance is totally different.
We need a parliament of highly efficient and experienced professionals unlike those who babble and waffle as the saying goes “empty vessels make more noise”.