President Mohamed Nasheed has said the First Amendment Bill to the Public Finance Act has been a “weapon” to disrupt the successes from government policies.

Speaking in his weekly radio address on Friday following Supreme Court’s temporary order allowing government to continue social benefits services to the public until a ruling by the Supreme Court on the Act, the President said implementing the amendment would have obstructed a number of developmental programmes and services under government’s social protection system.

“Some politicians saw the successes from government’s social protection system and economic growth not so much as gains for the public, but as reasons for greater public support for the government.

“The First Amendment to the Public Finance Act was [therefore] a weapon to disrupt the scope, the speed and successful implementation of government policies,” said the President.

Based on legal advice citing a range of issues with the bill, the President had therefore refused to ratify the bill and sent back it for parliament’s reconsideration.

However, the President said on Friday, the People’s Majlis passed the bill again “without any recourse” to government’s arguments.

“When I received the bill for ratification, the question before me as Head of State was how culpable I would be to throw the government into a situation where several development programmes and services under social protection system would come to a halt.”

He continued, “We had been delaying ratification, but after Supreme Court’s ruling on ratification, we hastened to see the options left.”

“For us one of the most important duties is to establish a lawful state… that is why complying with Supreme Court’s ruling is so important.”

Following President’s ratification of the bill on Monday, the Attorney General, however, filed a case in the Supreme Court to rule that articles 5, 7, 10(a), 34 of the Public Finance Act contradicted the Constitution and applied for a temporary order until issues arising from enacting the Act were resolved.