Letter on expatriate workers

To the Employment Minister,

If one asks me what time it is, I would say it’s time for us to check and screen the expatriate workers working throughout the country, and the expatriate staff doing tourism and fishing industry jobs that Maldivian young men and women could do.

And if someone asks me why we have to do this, I would say it’s for the sake of developing our economy, for the sake of repairing the country’s damaged social fabric, for the sake of not making our country famous for spitting here and there (the majority of the laborers working here do it as if it’s part of their life or habit).

Minister, it’s unbelievable that we see 300-400 expatriate laborers standing at various corners of the capital Male’ like a minor demonstration, and at the same time the country’s Immigration Department and the Employment Ministry keep quiet and silent, enjoying the art of doing nothing.