Opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has called for the reinstatement of the airport development contract with Indian GMR Infrastructure and warned the party will terminate any new agreements if it comes to power.
“The MDP immediately calls on the Government of Maldives that instead of repealing the annulled agreement in order to award it to another party, to render it to its original benefactor. The failure to conduct this repeal would allow Maldives to suffer unforeseeable risk and irrevocable harm,” the party said in a statement today.
“[T]his party on this day hereby resolves that any government formed by this party shall annul all corrupt agreements made by this government regarding the airport and render it back to whom it is rightfully due.”
The warning comes following President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s call for new airport developers at an investment forum in Singapore.
The GMR, in consortium with Malaysia Aiports, narrowly won the International Finance Corporation (IFC) managed bid for the airport in 2010, and signed the agreement with Maldives Airport Company Ltd (MACL) under the former government of Mohamed Nasheed.
However, following a nationalist campaign to evict GMR and Nasheed’s ouster in February 2012, new President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan declared GMR’s concession agreement ‘void ab intio’ (invalid from the outset) in December 2012, and gave GMR seven days to leave the country.
After Singaporean court upheld the government’s decision, the GMR filed a claim for US$ 1.4 billion in compensation from the Maldives – a figure that eclipses the annual state budget. Arbitration proceedings are now underway in Singapore.
Yameen has conceded the government must compensate GMR, but said the company is only owed US$ 300 million.
The MDP noted an Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) investigation had confirmed the GMR agreement to be corruption free and said the agreement had been made according to legal and international best practices.
The ACC noted an MACL managed airport would raise US$ 254 million in 25 years while the GMR consortium would bring in US$ 534 million.
“For these reasons the MDP Government, having found that the best advantage for the Government of Maldives would be to privatise the airport, it was assigned to GMR with the benefit and wellbeing of Maldivian people in mind; where it was impliedly and manifestly known that the matter was undertaken not for political gain but rather for the public good,” the party said.
“Notwithstanding this, those in the opposition at that time not only distorted the facts completely to the people; but the consecutive coup government that followed unscrupulously annulled the Airport Agreement. MDP is adamant to the fact that their position did not consider the wellbeing of the nation and its people.”
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Awaiting Hero's post full of facts and statistics in 5 4 3 2 1...
you mean manager hero the zero
Hey. Nasheed should pay what ever we have to pay to GMR.
GMR can forget to step their foot in the Maldives airport and we will not give away the airport to GMR.
Since MDP is being hijacked by Nasheed and the fact that this corrupt deal was done by Nasheed we are not surprised to hear things like this from MDP.
MDP is now divided and majority of MDP members do not the idiot to lead the party and you will see if there is any election , then Nasheed will get badly debated.
ACC initial report clearly said that the corruption was involved in the transaction and second report said there was no corruption involved . But worth to note that they have highlighted that " since some people who they have questioned said that they can not remember what had transpired during the process now" and this statement was made to believe ACC guys that it is free from corruption.
If guy a kill a person and then he says if he can not remember whether he had killed or not , does not mean that the guy had not killed the persons.
This is the basis how ACC found that there was no corruption involved.
I wonder how much GMR and Nasheed had paid to ACC guys to make it clean deal.
blah blah blah, gulp (money)...if it comes to power... blah, blah, blah.... gulp (money)... the nerve!
OMFG I HATE MDP SO MUCH WAAAHHHHHHh
ALLAH AKBAR #ISLAM
Here we go again.....GMR should take the compensation and run as fast as they can from you crooks.....and God help the poor sucker who decides to accept the contract to complete the airport works.
You need to sort out the political mess in your country before awarding any more international contracts.....no contractor will feel safe in Maldives after the GMR fiasco.
Is it true you will be prospecting for oil in Maldives?.....he he he.....whose dumb idea is that?.....will this be for mineral oil, vegetable oil or fish oil?
Your mentally challenged politicians do come up with some hairbrained proposals. Are there any proposals for finding gold on Thilafushi and uranium on Raa Atoll?
MDP has called for the reinstatement of GMR
MDP will succeed the GMR case this time with the support of Qasim as the president of majlis - another couple of million perhaps
,,, last offer was 7.5 million per Qasim
Aww, lookit poor little Hero. So scared of having to pay blood price. Nasheed did not campaign for GMR's removal, so he's innocent. And Hero really should respect the courts decision or else investors will not come to Maldives.
From MDPs perspective this is the way forward.
Could be the best option for the country too.
Unless someone can negotiate and get the x $billion debt ramifications reduced to palatable figures.
But, what a blunder to inherit.! Man, whew! What a blunder!
Court is not going to ask to pay billion and maximum they will ask is " what GMR had claimed to have spent" out of the operating income that they earned during their power in airport.
Nasheed is a crook and the guy had taken millions of dollars from GMR and GMR had spent millions to get the idiot elected in 2013.
What a wast of money.
Balckstone, had invested over 350 millions dollars cash in Maldives after GMR contract was terminated.
Blackstone profile 1000 times higher than GMR and yet they were confident in investing in Maldives.
Basically they know unless they do a dodgy deal like GMR, no one will bothered and they will not be kicked out.
We have no rooms to tolerate people GMR todo dodgy deal in this country and no investor will try to cut the deals like GMR.
GMR had done a similar kind of deal recently in Cebu and now people so angry about the corrupt deal and GMR might face the same situation like in Maldives in Sebu shortly.
Look at IGMH. Rain coming down sooo many roofs!!!! So, many years since IGMH began, but, still LOADS and LOADS and LOADS of repairs.
I am against Indian workmanship. SLOPPY.
Wow this is the lowest level MDP can get. They are so desperate to give back to GMR aren't they. They are now worried the current government may attract more investors so this is to scare them. No surprises here since GMR paid big sums of money and its no coincidence 2 persons who initiated this deal Thasmeen and Shahid are now MDP members.