Now that Maldives has voted for change and we are all going to have a flavor of ‘difference’ in the way the country is governed, we must all brace ourselves for what will hit us in the near future.

From what we have all heard since the elections, it seems that the new government will be based on principles of modern governance where the role of government is minimized – i.e. the new government will shrink its present size. Hence serious downsizing activities starting from island offices to regulating bodies to government ministries and Maldivian missions abroad is expected.

Now, my worry isn’t the act of downsizing in itself. In fact I agree completely with a small government and more privatization. This will definitely help reduce government expenditures and hence allow for a more developed private sector, which in turn may increase the general prosperity levels of our people. But….nothing is guaranteed unless the process is carried out with much thought and wise decision making.

As favorable as downsizing seem, the rehabilitation and addressing the needs of the people who may suddenly face unexpected changes in their lives which has been the same way for the last two or so decades will be much necessary. Unless this is addressed downsizing the government will not only fail to bring about favorable results, it will end up increasing the expenses of the government. Let me explain how.

Relative to the working population of Maldives, it has an unusually big government and government control is excessive. Private sector is heavily regulated and our bureaucracy is pretty much inefficient, save for a few processes. The new government’s decision to cut down on government expenditure and inject that money into other areas of development seems like a great idea. BUT… more importantly the new government must look for a way to rehabilitate the ones who will suddenly find themselves jobless. There has to be a way to train them, teach them life skills, facilitate private sector jobs for them etc. Otherwise, whichever plan that they come up with in order to help the people who leave will only eat into our social security budget.

Another possibility is that the government just downsize without any consideration for the people who are going to leave. This will not only aggravate anti-governmental sentiments, but also create much bigger social problems than we’d have assumed.

Either way, I hope that the new government will seriously consider both sides of the decision, before blindly following a particular style of governance just because it is a good idea in principle. Maldives is unique not only because of its size, but also because of our way of life. So all benefits and costs of downsizing the government, how fast it should be done, to what extent and which institutions etc must be decided only after careful consideration. Otherwise it just might do the opposite of what it’s supposed to do.

Related posts:

  1. Maldives, a paradise in trouble.
  2. Does tourism help the poor in the Maldives?
  3. How Maldives can climb out of its fiscal dark hole
  4. Is Maldives becoming more corrupt or seeing more of it?
  5. How should we transfer civil servants from Male’ to the provinces?