Five members, eight staff, and a jetty desk open every day
How the arrangements on this site were agreed, and how to change one.
How the guesthouse arrangements were actually agreed
None of what is on this site was handed down. Each arrangement came out of an open meeting with residents and operators in the same room, and it is worth describing how, because people ask us to copy it.
The first attempt failed. In the year the fourth guesthouse opened, the council wrote a set of rules and published them. They were ignored within a month, because the people who had to apply them had not been in the room and did not accept the reasoning.
The second attempt started from complaints instead. The office had eleven months of written complaints, which sorted themselves into four subjects: dress on the village streets, noise at night, boats at the jetty, and waste. Each one was taken to a separate meeting, the complaints were read out without names, and the operators were asked to propose the answer themselves.
Three of the four arrangements are close to what the operators proposed. The fourth, the visitor beach, was the council's, and the operators paid a third of it because they had asked for somewhere to send people.
What the council decides here: the jetty and its moorings, waste collection and the business rate, the roads and lighting, the public beaches, the council hall, the burial ground, the visitor desk, and the island's own registry. What it does not decide: who owns land, utility matters, the health centre, the school, guesthouse licensing at a national level, and anything a national office holds authority over. In those cases we take the paperwork, add what our record shows, forward it and chase it monthly. Nothing said at this counter is a ruling.
The council meets on the second and fourth Tuesday at half past eight in the evening. Residents and operators may sit in, the agenda goes up four days before, and any of these arrangements may be put back on it.
The members and the office
Mohamed Shiham
Elected in 2021 and holds the jetty and the visitor arrangements. Took the beach and mooring questions to open meetings with operators and r...
Aishath Rifga
Runs the collection rounds, the guesthouse bed rate and the daily water board. The person to see about a missed collection, a crate of bottl...
Ali Zahir
Keeps the plot register and the beach cleaning rota. He will read out what the record says about a plot and tell you plainly what the counci...
Fathimath Ilham
Runs the office, the complaints book, the guesthouse register and the jetty desk rota. Every reference number on this island comes from her,...
Collection, water and the things people ask
Which mornings is waste collected, and what does it cost?
Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday from six. Food waste, bottles and tins in one bag, everything else in another. Garden waste on the Thursday round. Fifty rufiyaa a month per household.
Guesthouses are collected every morning including Friday and pay by the occupied bed instead, which is why household collection has stayed at three mornings and at fifty rufiyaa.
Why does the water pressure drop in February?
Because the plant was sized for a thousand people and in that month the island holds about one thousand six hundred and forty, counting visitors and seasonal staff.
The council publishes the day's production and the previous day's draw on the board outside the office every morning, so you can see it rather than wonder. In the tightest fortnight the guesthouses fill their own tanks between midnight and five. The plant belongs to the utility, and meters and bills are matters for them.
Who do I ring about noise at midnight?
The number on the noticeboard outside the office, which reaches somebody at any hour, or the office number. Say the time and the place.
The operator is telephoned that night rather than the following week, because a complaint answered four days late is worth nothing. A first complaint is a conversation, a second in the same season goes in writing, and a third goes on the agenda of an open meeting with the operator invited.
The visitor desk is at the jetty every day
Eight until six, including Friday. Maps, the beach arrangement, boat times and somebody who speaks English.