Lawmakers or toddlers: Majlis takes unscheduled naps on the public dime

As one of the three fundamental pillars of the state, the People's Majlis carries an enormous burden of responsibility and an exhausting workload.

This constitutional entity bears the official duty of drafting legislation, hosting parliamentary debates, and keeping the government in check.

To top it off, keeping this establishment up and running bleeds a massive amount of the public's hard-earned tax money every single day.

Massive paychecks for a three-day workweek

However, the public impression of the People's Majlis has turned into something vastly different, and thoroughly unpleasant. Under parliamentary rules, lawmakers are required to convene every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, while committee work is supposed to move forward in tandem.

All this for a job where an individual parliamentarian pockets a monthly compensation package topping MVR 80,000.

A super-majority of zero productivity

Lately, parliamentary sittings are thrown out the window without a shred of logical reasoning or consistency, as sessions are put on the calendar or scrapped on a complete whim. Even with the ruling PNC commanding a super-majority, parliament is somehow moving backward instead of forward.

What the public sees is an unproductive waste of space where representatives happily rake in massive paychecks while failing to do their actual jobs.

Taking hints from the school calendar

Parliament seems to operate like a school taking time off for vacation. Right on cue with the current student holiday break, the legislature appears to have placed itself on an extended vacation of its own.

As a direct result, zero sittings were put on the schedule for this past Monday and Tuesday, with whispers floating around that no further meetings will occur for the rest of the week either. Making matters worse, the parliamentarians themselves are left completely in the dark without any official rationale explaining why these sittings were axed.

Less organized than a local kindergarten

Even actual pre-schools manage to clearly outline and announce their holiday schedules ahead of time, leaving kids and parents fully aware of when the first term, second term, and mid-term breaks take place. On the flip side, the shady way parliament goes on recess, cancels sittings, or sneaks off on off-the-books breaks remains completely hidden from the public eye. It is deeply alarming and degrading that the electorate is left totally clueless about the status and operations of their own legislative assembly.

Sleeping on the job while the country struggles

It is certainly not as if the country has run out of problems to solve, as there is an overwhelming mountain of issues demanding government accountability.

While infrastructure projects across multiple islands sit dead in the water, official promises stall, and ordinary citizens endure endless hardships, the primary watchdog institution chooses to sit around doing nothing.

Skipping out on sittings is not happening because there is no work to be done; rather, it exposes a lazy, complacent assembly that exists merely to act as a rubber stamp for the current administration.