Tag: Addu International Aiport Company Ltd

Fishermen to protest EU fish import policy

Vice President of the Maldives National Chamber Of Commerce and Industry (MNCCI) Ismail Asif has today said that Maldivian fishermen are going to stage a protest against the EU.

The protest is to express concern regarding the decision made by the EU not to extend the duty-free status of imported fish from the Maldives, following the country’s failure to comply with international conventions concerning freedom of religion.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday Asif claimed that the EU was attempting to take advantage of the country’s delicate economy and force certain policies on the Maldives.

”The MNCCI had tried to talk with the EU regarding the issue but the EU declined to go for negotiations,” he said, adding that the EU was trying to spread policies that Maldivians do not accept under the guise of human rights.

”But they never directly tell us that their issue is that the Maldives does not have religious freedom,” Asif said.

“They always say under this article of that convention or something like that.”

Asif questioned the capacity in which EU was here in the Maldives and said he will ask the government why the EU was brought here and why the government had given opportunity for such a dangerous group of people.

The EU yesterday revealed details of its first full EU Election Observation Mission to take place in the Maldives, with around 30 observers working to compile a comprehensive report on the entire Majlis elections process.

Asif said the EU delegation might go back and write another report and start taking actions against the country. He suggested that democracy – which he argued was more than observing elections and criticising – could only be strengthened after stabilising the economy of the country.

Businessmen in the Maldives are very concerned that an EU delegation had come to the Maldives after taking measures that would harm the economy of the country, Asif said.

”While they had taken these actions against us they did not consider that the Maldives is the country that does fishing the most environmentally friendly way,” he said.

The EU was doing anything they want to the Maldives because it is a small country, he argued, adding that all they do is provide funds for local NGOs to spread their propaganda.

”Maldivians can decide anything they want to decide when they want to decide it,” he said.

The Maldives exports 40 percent of its US$100 million fishing industry to the EU, its single largest export partner by value.

Until January 2014 those exports were duty-free under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) program, a non-reciprocal trade agreement extended to developing countries.

The Maldives applied for an extension under the ‘GSP+’ program, a unilateral trade concession of the EU given to a limited number of countries on the basis of good implementation of human rights are labor conventions, officials said, however did not qualify due to the country’s reservations to ICCPR on religious freedom and CEDAW concerning women’s rights.

The total fish catch has been declining each year since 2006 reaching 83.1 thousand metric tonnes in 2011, leading to fears about the impact of climate change and overfishing by better equipped fishing fleets on the borders of the Maldives’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

In November last year, the government said that the Maldives will look to alternative fish export markets, including the middle-eastern and the Malaysian market.

Asif was unavailable for comment when contacted by Minivan News today.

Under the Maldivian constitution all citizens are required to be Sunni Muslim and the practice of other religions is criminalised. Customs authorities forbid the import of religious items and scan the baggage of tourists arriving at the airport, while politicians frequently use allegations of ‘consorting with missionaries’ as a political attack.

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Gasim alleges corruption in Gan airport development deal

Jumhoree Party (JP) Leader and MP for Alif Dhaal Maamigili, Gasim Ibrahim, has alleged corruption in the proposed sale of a stake in the Addu International Airport Company Ltd (AIA) to finance development of the Gan airport in Addu City.

The allegations were made in a six-page letter from the business magnate MP sent on Tuesday to President Dr Mohamed Waheed, which was leaked to local media last week.

The JP presidential candidate reportedly contended that the government had decided to sell a 30 percent stake in AIA to a local company named Kasa Holdings “without due consideration.”

‘Champa’ Hussain Afeef, tourism pioneer and business mogul, owns Kasa Holdings.

A consortium formed by the Maldives Airports Company Ltd (MACL), the State Trading Organisation (STO) and the Gan Airport Company meanwhile owns AIA.

AIA Managing Director Shahid Ali – also managing director of STO – confirmed to newspaper Haveeru in September that the AIA board of directors had decided to sell a 30 percent stake in AIA to Kasa Holdings for MVR60 million (US$3.9 million).

Shahid explained that Kasa Holdings and a Malaysian company had bid for the project following a public tender or announcement. He added that the Finance Ministry was consulted prior to the decision to sell the 30 percent stake.

Moreover, the bid announcement was made after the President’s Office approved the process, he said. However, the sale has been held up after the Transport Ministry asked the consortium to review the process and determine if the valuation was in line with the Public Finance Act.

Shahid said in September that AIA had requested legal advise from the Attorney General and that the government had not instructed the company on how to proceed.

Gasim meanwhile said in his letter that MVR60 million for 30 percent of AIA’s share was “a very small amount” as the value of the airport would be higher than MVR 3 billion (US$200 million).

Moreover, while US$44 million had been estimated as the cost of developing the airport, the JP MP claimed that the project could be completed with US$24 million.

An “open tender just in China alone” for the project would suffice to prove his assertion, Gasim wrote in his letter to Dr Waheed.

If the sale goes through, Gasim warned that Kasa Holdings would be positioned to acquire 70 percent of AIA by moving to sell 40 percent to a buyer of its choice.

“If a member representing the government does not attend a board meeting held to sell this 40 percent, Kasa Holdings will have the power to sell 40 percent of shares to whoever it pleases at whatever price it wants,” Gasim wrote. “In light of my experience on how these [deals] are completed, I have to say that the ultimate result would be the remaining unsold 40 percent being sold to a buyer of Kasa’s choice and the opening up of the opportunity for Kasa Holdings to control 70 percent, and within this opportunity, for [Kasa] to sell 51 or more percent of AIA to another foreign party.”

Gasim further contended that the move would pose a risk to national security, as the government would have no legal powers over the company.

Cancelling the agreement would mean paying the foreign party a “huge amount in compensation,” he claimed.

Gasim insisted that the Gan aiport should be developed by MACL and offered in his letter to reclaim land for the project free of charge “using my own dredger, employees and machinery with the government only providing oil.”

In October 2011, Gasim opened the Maldives’ first private airport at his native Maamigili with his ‘Flyme’ Villa airline landing the first flight in the new airport in Alif Dhaal atoll.

Gasim’s Jumhooree Party, part of the ruling coalition, is among parties calling for the nationalisation of the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport and cancellation of the previous administration’s concession agreement with Indian infrastructure giant GMR to develop and manage the Hulhule airport.

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