:: Dhivehi Observer :: Peoples Press ::

MIFCO fire cloud has silver lining

Maldives Culture special report - 16 October 2003

The fire at the Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) complex last Friday night has been curiously reported in Maldives, and there are significant differences between the information appearing in Dhivehi, and reports in English.

In a 12 Oct Haveeru Dhivehi report, the NSS said the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit. Three hours before the fire began, the NSS said, an electrical fault was repaired in an area not far from the MIFCO warehouse and for some unexplained reason, it caused the fire at MIFCO. Inflammable materials fueled the fire and it took over three hours to extinguish the blaze, the police explained.

According to this Haveeru report, 'many important records' were destroyed, but 'the operations of the company are continuing very well, and there will be no change to the services or prices the company provides.'

The report then quotes from a MIFCO media release (not currently available on its website), which says that although the fire destroyed a large amount of records and documents, all the accounts up to August this year remain unharmed. MIFCO also says it has its production and financial income accounts, and all the travel documents of foreign employees of the company.

In a separate Dhivehi report in the Haveeru business section, Ibrahim Athif, MIFCO's deputy managing director said the internal audit report for the first 6 months of the year (up to 31 June) has already been done. The report is intact, Athif announced. 'What remains to be done, is the external audit report.' Athif showed past financial reports to the Haveeru reporter.

The MIFCO fire occurred before an external and independent audit report into its business activities, and any external audit will now have to rely solely on the surviving documents that were miraculously saved, despite the 3 hour conflagration.

In the Haveeru English online translations of the Dhivehi MIFCO reports, news of the existence of internal audits and foreign worker's travel documents was omitted. As far as non-Dhivehi readers are concerned, the fire at MIFCO destroyed everything.

Dhivehi readers, however, are aware that for some people at least, the dark cloud of the MIFCO fire has a silver lining.