Council grants Mayor Shifa 10 days to counter no-confidence vote

Male City Council, on Tuesday, ruled to allow Mayor Shifa Mohamed a period of 10 days to respond to the censure motion raised against her.

During the meeting held yesterday, nine councillors voted in favour of taking a vote of no confidence against the incumbent mayor.

Citing that, as the capital city’s mayor, Shifa assumed responsibility for all of the council’s undertakings, the councillors landed on allowing her an adequate time period to refute the claims, in accordance with the bylaws.

The censure motion against Mayor Shifa and Deputy Mayor Shamau Shareef was raised by Maafannu-South Councillor Mohamed Fazeen. 

According to Fazeen, the mayoral heads were not acting in the spirit of decentralisation, the key local governance strategy touted by the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party.

After the matter failed to be brought to floor during the initial attempt to raise his concerns, the councillor filed the complaint with the Local Governance Authority (LGA).

Then, referring to the LGA rulebook, Fazeen highlighted 39 allegations of misconduct and moved for a vote of no confidence. Drawing the Decentralisation Act into his argument, Fazeen insisted that both Shifa and Shamau acted outside the law, as suited the mayor.

Specifically, she faces claims of unauthorised spending as well as dodging committee decisions, and suggestions that her deficient efforts had fostered public disdain for the current administration.

At this time, Mayor Shifa has not responded to any of the accusations.

This is not the first instance that councillor Fazeen has found fault with the present mayor. Shifa has on a previous occasion, come forward to denounce Fazeen’s claims, calling them “baseless” and “maliciously intended”.

However, Fazeen would not be the sole MDP-allied councillor to cast doubts over Shifa’s competence to fulfil her duties.

One such situation occurred at a public consultation event held at Iskandar School, which was brought to an abrupt end when outrage ensued after Shifa decided that she would be the sole person answering all queries put forward.