When our Beloved Leader and President for Life, His Mightiness, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, announced that in the next five years he is going to build a big bridge between Hulhumale' and Male' and it will not cost us anything (Dhivehin nakah buradhan ufulaa kah nujeheyne) as it would be build using foreign investment, my Kaafa thought that means ...hey! We are getting a bridge for FREE!! And perfect reason to re-elect our God for another five more years. Yippee!
WTF! Nothing can be further from the truth. No company is going to invest in building a bridge for free out of the goodness of their heart. They would expect to make a decent PROFIT from the bridge. How? By charging the people who use it. And how much would we have to pay? I can bet on His Mightiness's Pimply derrière that it would cost nothing less than US $ 100 million! So how much would us, the poor people who want to use the bridge, have to pay every time we want to use it? And I bet it would cost a hundred times more than what we pay now for the ferry.
Moreoever, the foreign investment comes with its RISKS. For example, the investor does not have to be "completely obedient to the economic policies of the country where they have invested the money. At times there have been adverse effects of foreign direct investment on the balance of payments of a country."
What drives me livid, irate and choleric is that His Foreverness Maumoon has made it sound as if it would be no burden on us. I give you, he can lie through his teeth without a blink of those slimy eyes. What a load of tosh! The burden would have to be born by us people of Male'/Hulhumale.
Don't get me wrong. I am not against a bridge between Hulhumale' and Male'. As someone who would be moving to Hulhumale' soon I would be happy to travel via a bridge rather than a choppy sea any day. And if I can afford it, I would gladly pay for the toll.
My bone of contention with Our one and only Leader for Life is HE LIED saying that people will not have to pay for it. Whether it is build by foreign investment or from our own budget, we will still have to pay for it.
The people of Maldives will still have to pay for the bridge. CAPISCE?
