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Unequal wealth distribution
in the Maldives
A sixteen-year-old girl
sheds her tears on the issue
Noora,18/04/2005-It
is expected of a country with a high economic development to
have a high standard of living for its people. Why is it that
even though Maldives being one of the most well developed
economies within the South Asian pacific, still having more
than 30% of its population lingering on the poverty line. Is
it that the high economic development is a false alarm or that
there is an unequal distribution of wealth within the nation.
The answer is simple, unequal distribution of wealth has been
a major problem within our nation for years.
 Speaking
through the hardships which had been the day-to-day life of a
sixteen-year-old Maldivian girl, and being the only girl in a
family of eight members, I can easily tell how hard it is to
live a normal life, if your family is based on a small amount
of monthly earned income. With my father working 18 hours a
day for the government, I can assure you that what he earns is
simply not enough to keep the family going on a proper basis.
It does not even live up to fulfill the basic necessities of
our everyday life. Unequal distribution of income and wealth
made life hard and horrible for us. It is like living on the
tip of a leaf always the fear of falling down lingering in our
mind and heart. Life has become too complicated for us to live
peacefully through it.
A
government employee, with a monthly income of MRF 2995 is
expected to live a stable life while paying for several daily
and monthly necessities as such of house rents, electricity
bills, water bills, and food etc. This is quite a high
expectation if house rents reach up to a value of MRF 8000,
with electricity bills and telephone bills extending over a
range of thousands. If this is the income earned and if such
high payments are in line how are we expected to live a normal
life? This is the life I have been leading so far, and believe
me it is really hard to live on such a basis when you have a
huge family and enough responsibilities to last a life time.
You barely get what you want, and every step that you take in
life requires you to make a lot of choices at your own expense
and loss. Unless and otherwise you have a large number of
hands to support you, this individual income will lead you no
where. You have just read through the life of an ordinary
Maldivian and you will simply accept the fact that this will
be the life line of any other Maldivian who earns a government
employees income.
This
maybe the story of any ordinary person, but the problem is
those who are not regarded as ordinary, or those who have high
positions in the economy do not face the same problem. They
earn so much that they spend more than thousands over there
coffee table, while we are still unable to spend a penny for a
daily cup of milk. Those who earn more tend to earn even more
as our economy grows, while those who earn fewer falls further
down the hole, there expenses rising with the economic growth.
This is not the way these things should be. A rise in economic
growth should be followed by a rise in the wages of the low
income earners. Those who earn more than what they truly need
should not be given further rises in their income, for this
would only widen the gap between the rich and the poor.
An equal
distribution of income and wealth is what need now. As
ordinary as we are, we too want to get proper education and
health facilities. We too want to lead a high standard of
living where we face no difficulties financially. We too want
our parents to earn enough to serve the purposes of life. Our
economy has developed, so why are we left to live at the mercy
of the state? Why is it that we are being deprived of what we
have equal rights on? Isn’t it the responsibilities of those
in power to make sure that we are leading a normal state of
life where we do not fall in to the line of poverty? I want to
know whether it is enough if we simply have a huge economic
growth whether or not the people are able to live through it.
Is this what we have been looking forward to for along time
now, or is there more to come.
Whether
or not this is taken into consideration I would like to call
upon those given responsibility to make necessary changes in
the distribution of income and wealth in a way in which
poverty does not become a part of our well developed economy.
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