Tag: minivan

Government invites IFJ to Maldives “to judge for itself”, after journalist body backs MBC

The Foreign Ministry of the Maldives has invited a delegation from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) to the Maldives “to judge [for themselves] whether the local media is able to meet the needs of the public it serves, and of freedom of expression in the Maldives.”

The invitation was given after the IFJ issued a statement supporting the transfer of assets of the Maldives National Broadcast Corporation (MNBC) to parliament’s Maldives Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).

The MNBC is a 100 percent government-owned corporation that controls the assets of the former State Broadcaster Television Maldives (TVM) and Voice of Maldives (VOM).

In April 2010 the then-opposition majority parliament triggered a tug-of-war for control of the state broadcaster after it created MBC, appointed a board, and then ordered MNBC transfer the assets to the new body. Following a refusal to do so by the President’s Office, a Civil Court ruling last week ordered the transfer take place within 20 days. The government has said it intends to appeal.

“The IFJ has consistently argued the case for public service journalism which is independent of state control and insulated from a dependence on advertising revenue which is known to often impair editorial independence,” said IFJ’s Asia-Pacific Director Jacqueline Park.

“The Maldives Journalists’ Association (MJA), an IFJ affiliate, has placed on record its belief that the empowerment of the autonomous corporation [MBC], which has been designated as a public service broadcaster under Maldives’ national law, is key to raising awareness during a challenging time of transition for the Indian Ocean republic.”

The Foreign Ministry claimed that “Unfortunately the current MBC Board was appointed at a time when the opposition majority of the People’s Majlis was being used for obvious political reasons.”

“However, the government looks forward to the day when the MBC can function as an independent, impartial and objective State broadcaster, backed by an independent and well-respected Board.”

The Maldivian media – including MNBC – is frequently accused of overt political bias favouring one or other of the major political parties, a legacy of decades of autocratic governance and a state-controlled media establishment.

Several opposition-allied MPs and businessmen remain key owners of much of the country’s private media, and visiting journalism trainers have voiced concerns from young Maldivian journalists that senior editorial management obstruct them from reporting ethically.

Iraq Editorial Manager for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), Tiare Rath, observed in September 2010 following a series of journalism workshops that “one of the major issues all my students talked about is resistance among newsroom leadership – editors and publishers.”

“Even if the journalists support and understand the principles being taught, they consistently tell me they cannot apply them,” Rath said.

“This is a very, very serious problem that needs to be addressed.”

Inviting the IFJ to the Maldives, the Foreign Ministry said it requested that the IFJ “only uphold the very principles they espouse when they report on the situation on the ground. In this regard, perhaps it would be useful for the IFJ to send a delegation to Male’.”

Minivan News is currently seeking a response from the IFJ to the Foreign Ministry’s invitation.

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Chennai surgeons reconstruct jaw of Maldivian baby using ribs, genetically-engineered protein

Indian surgeons in Chennai have reconstructed the jaw of an 18-month old Maldivian baby after removing a large bone tumour from his face, in the first operation of its kind to be conducted in India.

India’s Deccan Chronicle newspaper reported that the “grotesque” tumour was removed during six hours of “gruelling” surgery at Chennai’s Balaji Dental and Craniofacial Hospital, during which time Mohemmed Salik’s lower jaw was reconstructed using three of his ribs, a titanium plane and “three sheets of an expensive genetically-engineered protein that promotes bone growth.”

Craniofacial surgeon S M Balaji told the Chronicle that the rare condition usually led to an operation when the child reached 15 years of age, “however this baby needed immediate surgery as the tumour threatened to permanently disfigure his face and block his nostrils and ear canals.”

The baby’s father, a businessman based in Dubai, told the newspaper that the rare and life-threatening bone disease had appeared when Mohemmed was eight months old, and quickly grown into a “hard balloon” that had disfigured his face and made it impossible for the infant to eat or talk.

Surgeons were reportedly apprehensive about the proceedure, especially given the patient’s age and small size of his blood vessels.

Dr Balaji explained that surgeons first removed a large part of Mohemmed’s upper jaw and then his entire diseased lower jaw, without making an external incision.

“We then harvested three ribs from the child and prepared it with Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP), that attracts stem cells to the area and promotes natural bone growth. The rib grafts were then implanted in the child’s mouth along with a titanium plate for support,” Dr Balaji told the Chronicle.

The newspaper added that six months after the operation, which took place in November last year, Mohemmed had a strong healthy jaw and would soon be fitted with an array of artificial milk teeth, most of which he lost in the operation, later to be replaced by a new set of permanent teeth.

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MMA’s enforcement of legal tender for all transactions “absurd”, says private sector

The private sector has expressed concern at the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA)’s announcement last week that it it intends to enforce the use of rufiya for all transactions conducted in the country.

The move effectively outlaws dollar transactions in the Maldives, with the intention of funneling foreign currency through the local banking system in a bid to combat the country’s dollar shortage.

President Mohamed Nasheed backed the central bank’s move, and the prohibition of the use of any currency other than rufiya for payments including remuneration for work, services, fees or rent.

The ‘grey’ dollar economy has existed in parallel to the local currency, and has insulated businesses such as resorts from the inflation of the rufiya, pegged at 12.85 to the dollar for almost a decade despite the global economic recession, printing of currency and issuing of T-bills.

“This regulation has existed since 1987,” observed Ahmed Adheeb, a local financial expert working in the private sector, adding that the lack of enforcement had protected the private sector from the country’s monstrous deficit and spend-happy state budget.

The MMA’s announcement came at time when “the convertibility of rufiya [into dollars] is in question because of the deficit, and the pumping of rufiya into the system.”

“Is this the right time to enforce this regulation?” Adheeb asked. “We met with the government and told them clearly that that our industry will face a lot of consequences if this happens.”

Local travel agents were one example of businesses that would be affected, Adheeb said.

“They [earn dollars] and contribute a large inflow of dollars into the economy. If they have to pay resorts in rufiya, they will lose their competitive advantage.”

The enforcement would take “the openness and flexibility of out of the economy, when the real issue lies with the state budget,” he said. “This will make business so difficult – it is very dangerous to the economy for the government to start sorting out industry before the state budget. And what of the practicality of it?

“The government needs to address the deficit and cut down its expenditure. State income will increase gradually, but if we keep spending like this we are headed for disaster.”

Minivan News spoke to the manager of one import business, who relies on resort customers paying in dollars to be able to buy stock from overseas.

The MMA’s decision, he claimed, was “absolutely absurd.”

“They can do what they like – but does this mean resorts must pay in rufiya? At a time when there’s no currency stability? Will resorts have to post rufiya prices in tourist brochures? If the objective is to drive foreign investment out of the Maldives with a raft of new taxes and a confused and bizarre monetary policy, then they’re being quite successful,” he said.

Another manager of a commodity import business Minivan News spoke to bluntly stated that she would be unable to comply with the regulation “because we trade in dollars.”

She added that  her business, which banks locally and was sorely hit by the dollar shortage and the reluctance of banks to convert local currency, had improved following the government’s decision implement a managed float of the rufiya.

“We found resorts were more willing to pay in dollars once we set our rate at Rf15.42,” she explained. “But unless the banks are going to exchange rufiya to dollars consistently and at a sensible rate, this is going to cause absolute uproar. And how on earth are they going to police things like payment of rent?”

Economic Development Minister Mahmoud Razee told Minivan News that the government was “trying to make sure that foreign currency goes through the banking system, by enforcing the legal tender.”

“The reason we are doing this is so importers can go to the bank and request dollars from the banking system,” he said. “This will not stop people having a dollar account, it will just stop transactions not in the legal tender.”

Every restaurant at tourist resorts would be obliged to change its menu to rufiya prices, he acknowledged, “but almost every resort and hotel already has a money changer.”

“The MMA will be able to take action if there is a transaction that does not take place in legal tender, and take [the parties] to court,” he said.

The MMA’s announcement came days after the government announced exchange control regulation on the salary of expatriates, legally limiting their ability to transfer money outside the country.

“We don’t want a lot of illegal workers sending foreign currency out of the country, working on the side and taking jobs from locals,” Razee said, explaining that expatriate workers would be obliged to prove they were working in the country legally at the point of transfer, and be restricted in the amount they could send overseas.

“The Ministry of Finance will set a percentage, say 90 percent, of the salary that can be remitted,” he said.

Adheeb was critical of the decision, suggesting that the government had chosen a critical time to impose exchange control.

“We have said it is not going to work as we have a small population and we need foreigners to work here,” he said. “[Issues concerning] non-skilled labour are a problem of regulation, but importing skilled labour gives us a competitive advantage at a time when there are issues converting the rufiya,” he said.

“I question the practicality off this – the banks are currently struggling to deliver services to their existing customers. How will they know if an expat is an illegal expat? This will just create a blackmarket for illegal banking transactions.”

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Comment: Politics plays king of the hill while world burns around the players

This article originally appeared on Patch.com, a US-based community news portal. Republished with permission.

When I stepped off the dhoni, or water taxi, onto the streets of Male, I was deafened by the unexpected silence.

Any other night in the capital city in the Republic of the Maldives, taxis and little gas scooters would be zipping down the main road, darting between pedestrians and disappearing down narrow streets toward the center of the island.

The island of Male is only two square miles and there are more than 100,000 permanent residents living in high, cramped apartments. Considering those numbers, there should have been Maldivians everywhere.

But there were no taxis, no scooters, and the only pedestrians were those who arrived with me on the dhoni. Everyone was in the town center for anti-government rallies organized by the youth in the capital.

I live in Imperial Beach [in the US] and am a regular contributor to Imperial Beach Patch, but for the last month I’ve been teaching English in the Maldives.

This is an account of a walk through anti-government protests I witnessed in Male’ last week.

Throngs of young dissenters, backed by the former ruling party the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (the Maldivian People’s Party, or DRP), had massed in the center of the island calling for President Mohamed Nasheed to step down.

The crimes protestors accused him of were numerous, from allowing ‘Western’ influence to permeate the traditional Islamic culture to allowing the rufiya, the Maldivian currency, to devalue.

The price of food and drinking water rose 20 percent over the course of the past two weeks, and whether all this could be blamed on President Nasheed seemed irrelevant.

This was the final straw for many young Maldivians. Enthusiastic calls for his resignation came like it has for other countries that recently experienced climbing food prices and instability around the world.

As I moved toward the city’s center, columns of Maldivian police in full riot gear jogged past, taking positions at major intersections and government buildings.

A long line of officers sat atop a stone wall outside the Grand Friday Mosque, their feet dangling like boys fishing off a pier. Riot shields were propped against cracked coral walls, batons hung from belt loops and tear gas canisters were strapped securely to the men and women of the city’s law enforcement.

Overlapping shields kept new protestors out of the intersection dissenters made their main soapbox. The previous night’s protests ended with the use of batons and fire extinguishers.

As a result, the police came under heavy criticism. To stem further controversy, the police decided they would only use high-pressure hoses to disperse the crowds once the morning light came.

The silence faded as I navigated between tall, colorful apartment buildings toward the city center. In the distance, I could hear chanting, yelling, sirens. With every few feet, the shouts became more intelligible and intense.

Men and women, predominantly young but of all ages, filled the intersection. A small group of men sat atop a flatbed truck flanked by speakers who shouted into megaphones, calling to the crowd in Dhivehi, first with a long stream of propaganda, then with back-and-forth chants. “Down with Nasheed”, and “Allahu Akbar” echoed off surrounding buildings as Maldivians threw their fists into the air with each chant.

Signs depicting the current president dressed as the pope bobbed among the throng, and crumpled paper copies of US dollar bills flew high into the air. Teenagers ran around in masks bearing Nasheed’s image, with blood running down from the vacant eyeholes.

It seemed like the entire island showed up.

A young Maldivian who approached me said they were upset about the spike in food and water prices. I told him I understand that, but asked what the crowd wanted the president to do to solve the problem.

After a moment of silence, the young man said, “We want him to hear us.”

The two-step of propaganda followed by chanting continued for an hour, with an occasional break in the propaganda to take time to sing the Youth Song, a Maldivian song of unity and inspiration. Everyone knew the words, and for a moment the mood shifted from that of a tense protest to that of an outdoor festival.

Shortly after they finished the song a student from my English class recognised me and struck up conversation.

Excitedly, he pointed to a group of men seated on the street. They were dissenting members of parliament, he said, and had been out there since the start of the protests. I was surprised by how vulnerable these politicians made themselves.

Minutes later I was interviewing a tall, steely-eyed parliamentarian, Ahmed Nishan of the DRP.

A circle of protestors formed around us to watch our conversation and attracted the Maldivian national news, who recorded part of our interview.

I asked him several times what his party thought the president could do to fix the problems created by the rising cost of food globally.

Each time I was met with a reiteration of some unrelated talking points.

After asking the same question as many different ways as I knew how, he finally told me his party and the youth didn’t have a solution — they just wanted the president to know how they felt, and are demanding a solution.

Nishan ended our interview by starting a raspy chant, calling once again for President Nasheed to step down from his position, even going so far as to call him a demon.

I rejoined my student following the spontaneous interview. He had received a call from another student, saying he saw me on the television during the interview. I laughed, surprised as he was concerning the events of the evening.

My student and I left the main mass of the protest to have a quick cup of coffee, during which we discussed Maldivian politics and possible solutions to the problems the protestors had with their current government.

Before long, we heard screams from the streets.

Members of the MDP were showing up in columns, out to oppose the DPR youth gathered in the intersection. After a tense standoff between the parties, members of the DPR rushed MDP supporters.

The crowd behind the DRP lurched forward in a great stampede. From the flanks, high feminine screams rang out and men toppled to the ground as others trampled over them. The brawl continued for several minutes, clearing after the retreat of the MDP supporters.

By now it was 2:00am. and the final boat back to my island was leaving in half an hour. I thanked my student for staying with me during the protest, and left the crowd to return to the dhonis.

I thought about all I saw, replaying the night in my head as the dhoni bobbed back toward my island.

In the real world, rarely can black and white lines be drawn to separate the good guys from the bad. In Syria and Libya as it was in Tunisia and Egypt, the population is oppressed and the government is corrupt. Those lines aren’t difficult to define.

In this tiny island nation, there were no lines, only vague demands and complaints with no solutions being offered from either of the two major political parties. Rising food costs were fuel to adversarial fire that had been burning for years between the MDP and the DRP.

The fight was more about power and less about solving problems. I wondered if this was the necessary endpoint of adversarial, two-party politics; a game of king of the hill while the world burns around the players.

Graig Graziosi is teaching English in the Maldives.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Day of protests ends with pepper spraying of Umar Naseer

An opposition protest held last night near the artificial beach was dispersed by police after the group tried to make its way towards the intersection of Majeedhee Magu and Chandanee Magu, the focal point of last week’s violent demonstrations.

Earlier this week police had announced they were restricting protests to the artificial beach and tsunami monument areas, and have since quickly dispersed those conducted elsewhere.

Demonstrators at the artificial beach last night carried placards written in English reading “Remove sex offenders/drug addicts from government”, and “Resign now”.

As the demonstration took place, five rows of police and Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) personnel armed with heavy wooden batons stood between the 300-400 demonstrators and the route down Majeedhee Magu.

At around 11:30pm demonstrators, attempted to reach the intersection and were forced to split up by groups of police with interlocked arms.

Police eventually used pepper spray to subdue several protesters who attempted to force their way into the intersection, including dismissed Deputy Leader of the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Umar Naseer.

Placards at the artificial beach

“Five or six people who tried to force their way through our shield line were arrested and taken to police headquarters, and then released,” Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said.

Minivan News observed a light police presence all over the city, with larger squads of riot police stationed near key locations such as the President’s Office and the Chandanee Magu intersection. Several MNDF troop trucks stood ready outside the MNDF headquarters, but the military presence appeared minimal.

Besides the opposition protest and groups of young men hanging around the intersection heckling police, Male’ was unusually quiet for late evening. Entire city blocks in the north-east of the city were closed off and Republican Square was deserted.

An opposition protest in the square that morning involving several hundred people was quickly dispersed by riot police, and covered by foreign media including Associated Press and Al-Jazeera. The protest was subsequently rescheduled for the evening.

Later in the afternoon, a somewhat carnival atmosphere descended over the city as the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) staged a flag-waving counter-protest of several thousand people near the tsunami monument, alongside a concert stage and a police road safety campaign consisting of upturned cars and burned motorcycles.

Five lines of police blocked off Majeedee Magu.

“Anti-government protesters claim the uprising is inspired by the Arab revolution, that people power is rising up,” reported Al-Jazeera. “But here on the other side of town are thousands of voicing pointing out that the revolution has already happened.”

In an interview with the news network, President Nasheed accused the opposition of trying to reinstate authoritarian rule.

“I don’t think these are spontaneous demonstrations. If you look at the events and incidents [this week] it is very easy to understand this is very well stage-managed and fairly well played,” he said.

Al-Jazeera observed that “while leading opposition figures are clearly at the forefront of these demonstrations, they deny this,” and interviewed DRP Leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali.

“It is not attempt overthrow or change the government, it’s just raising voices,” Thasmeen told Al-Jazeera.

Note: Maldives coverage begins at 0:50

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IFJ releases South Asian “Press Freedom in Peril” report

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)‘s 2011 ‘Press Freedom in Peril‘ for South Asia has claimed there are “several matters of detail on which discord between journalists and the government is rife” in the Maldives.

The report, produced on behalf of the South Asia Media Solidarity Network (SAMSN) of which the Maldives National Journalists’ Association (MJA) is a member, states that “going beyond the perception-based indexes of press freedom that have put Maldives among the most rapidly improving countries, there are certain difficulties that journalists in the nation continue to face, even if these are not reflected in the broad numerical indexes, which are admittedly of limited value.”

The reports claims that journalists covering opposition demonstrations in October 2010 were been “beaten with batons, some of them shackled and a number briefly detained,” with police claiming that this occurred because “some of the journalists covering the demonstration had started engaging them in a confrontational spirit.”

The report also noted the opposition party had blamed the alleged assaults on journalists on Parliamentary Group Leader of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), “who had, in the weeks preceding the event, made a number of public statements that suggested a deep antipathy towards the media.”

Manik referred to private TV channels in the Maldives as the fruit of ‘ill-gotten’ wealth and vowed to teach them a lesson,” the report claimed.

Subsequent findings from the Maldives Media Council (MMC) had “sought to be all things to all people, calling on journalists to follow a certain code of practice when covering events such as opposition led demonstrations, while at the same time, reprimanding the police for not giving adequate space for the media in their effort to record the protests.”

“Journalists needed to adhere to a certain standard of discipline, and the police needed to provide sufficient leeway for honest journalistic effort,” the report said, citing the MMC.

Attempts to devise a code of ethics and self-regulation for the country’s journalists by the MJA had been derailed by the state-owned media, the report claimed, “which was indifferent to this initiative, [and] which has rendered the code inoperative.”

The report noted a protest in October where four journalists from the private radio station DhiFM “were compelled to undertake a protest against their own employer when it turned out that the management had revealed the identity of a source used for a report on a tourist resort.”

“Irked by the content of the report, the resort management sacked the employee. The journalists who protested against their management’s unethical decision to reveal the identity of a news source, were in turn fired,” the report noted.

The report also highlighted the arrest of two Haveeru journalists in February 2011 “for interrogation” over leaked pornographic videos obtained from a Facebook blackmailing ring, which reportedly included material involved known public figures, and police efforts to obtain a warrant to search the newspaper’s offices, which was not executed.

A consistent concern throughout the year was the government’s decision to remove all government advertising from the media and publish an official gazette, depriving the industry of income, the report noted.

“By limiting the visibility of government advertisements, it has led to fears of bid-rigging and corruption in the award of official contracts. It has also caused considerable financial distress to the independent media,” the report stated.

The Miadhu newspaper had been compelled to move offices as a result of the decision, it claimed.

Read the full report: Free Speech in Peril: Press Freedom in South Asia 2010-11

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Comment: Climate change a real and imminent threat to the Maldives

Climate change is a very real and imminent threat to the Maldives, the smallest nation in Asia, which lost 20 islands during the 2004 tsunami. Since then, the government has gone strictly carbon neutral in a bid to protect its population from the rising sea.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague has described climate change as “perhaps the 21st century’s biggest foreign policy challenge”.

He has stressed that “a world which is failing to respond to climate change is one in which the values embodied in the United Nations will not be met”.

Indeed, the UN Charter makes clear that a central purpose of that organisation is to “achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character”.

Climate change is just such a problem – and its impacts and costs fall disproportionally on developing countries. That is deeply unfair. So it is only right that in Cancun last December the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reaffirmed the commitment from developed countries in Copenhagen in December 2009 jointly to mobilise $100bn of climate finance a year by 2020, to address the adaptation needs of developing countries and help them to limit their carbon emissions.

The UK takes this commitment very seriously and recognises the need for urgent action. The British Government has therefore allocated £2.9bn of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to international climate finance for the period 2011/12 to 2014/15 (including our Fast Start commitment). This will be administered through our International Climate Fund (ICF), which has just been formally established. We expect to spend about 50 percent of the total on adaptation in poor and vulnerable countries, with around 30% for work to reduce carbon emissions and 20% for forestry.

We have three overall priorities for ICF funding, which we will deliver through both bilateral and multilateral channels in a way which maximises its impact and value for money:

  • To show that building low carbon, climate resilient growth at scale is both feasible and desirable;
  • To support adaptation in poor countries and help build an effective international framework on climate change;
  • To drive innovation, creating new partnerships with the private sector to support low carbon climate resilient growth

The ICF will also fund the climate element of an Advocacy Fund to support the poorest countries to take part more effectively in international negotiations; this will be formally established later this year.

This UK funding will play an important role in helping to mobilise ambitious global action on climate change. But the UK is the only major donor so far to have made specific finance commitments up to 2015. More is needed to meet the Copenhagen commitment of $100bn a year by 2020. We look to other donors too to make significant and ambitious financial pledges, and we look to business to play an important role, since we expect the target to be reached through a mix of public and private finance.

As the Stern Review in 2006 made clear, the clock is ticking. With every passing year, the global cost of effective action to tackle climate change grows greater. The time to act is now.

John Rankin is the British High Commissioner to the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Hithadhoo fisherman dies of heart attack at sea

A 51 year-old man from Hithadhoo in Seenu Atoll died of a heart attack while on a fishing trip with 15 others last night.

Ibrahim Mohamed ‘Ibrahim Kalo’ was fishing from the boat ‘Shaan’ within a one nautical mile of Hithadhoo when he died, reports Haveeru.

“He looked fine when we set out. We were just off the island of Hulhudhoo catching bait when he fell down and was completely still. There was no pulse and he wasn’t breathing. We immediately set off for Hithadhoo,” another man on the vessel told Haveeru.

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Fees paid “in full and complete compliance with the concession agreement”: GMR

GMR Male International Airport (GMIAL) today sought to clarify the payment of the airport service charges, fuel re-export royalty and concession fees to the government, following reports in newspaper Haveeru that it was undergoing a tax audit due to “inconsistencies”.

Commissioner General of Taxation Yazeed Mohamed was reported in Haveeru as saying that the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA) was conducting an audit of the payments as “we looked into the speculations and found that there are some issues with the amounts paid.”

Yesterday, Haveeru reported the Managing Director of the Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) Mohamed Ibrahim as saying that the concession fee GMR had paid was US$2.6 million less than predicted.

“The payment was made in the first week of this month. We have informed the company that the amount does not match our estimations. The Finance Ministry has also informed the company that the actual amount would be more than that,” Ibrahim was reported as saying.

GMIAL issued a statement today claiming that concession fees up until March 31 had been paid “in full and complete compliance with the concession agreement.”

“MACL had certain observations to which GMIAL responded on April 11. MACL has not approached GMIAL with any further comments on the issue,” the statement read.

GMIAL further claimed the airport service charge was collected from airlines on behalf of the government until March 31 and paid to the MIRA on April 24, while the fuel re-export royalty was paid to MIRA on April 24 “as per the terms of the fuel re-export agreement.”

“GMIAL has not received any official communication from MIRA, other than acknowledgement of receipt, in relation to the above,” the statement concluded.

Speaking to Minivan News today, MIRA’s Director of Assessment and Audit Aiman Ibrahim said that the audit was “routine, as conducted for all tax types” and that the only inconsistency was that the airport service charge payment “was lower than our forecast.”

“Our forecast for the first three months, based on arrival and departures and factored into our 2011 budget, was that the airport service charge revenue would be US$4 million. The payment for November 25 to March 31 was US$3.9 million, so either there has been an underpayment or our forecasts were optimistic,” Ibrahim said.

The confusion was complicated, he said, “by an administration failure on behalf of the government. The Ministry of Finance was not aware it was supposed to be receiving the money. There is also conflict in the concession agreement: the agreement itself states that the [airport service charge] is to be paid monthly, but an annex in the agreement says payments are to be made on a quarterly basis. GMR had been keeping the money in a separate bank account.”

MIRA had not formally notified GMIAL that it was being audited, he said, as it was a routine audit and no notification was required unless further documentation from GMIAL was required.

GMR had met with MIRA today, Rasheed added, “and were very cooperative. They were concerned about the negative publicity.”

Indian infrastructure giant GMR, in consortium with Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB), last year won a bid to develop and manage Male’ International Airport under a 25 year concession agreement which includes a spend of almost US$400 million on a new terminal.

Under the agreement the consortium paid the government US$78 million upfront, and will pay one percent of its profits and 15 percent of fuel trade revenue until 2014. From 2015 it will pay the government 10 percent of airport profits and 27 percent of the fuel trade until 2035.

The agreement has been a major point of contention with the political opposition in the Maldives, which opposed it on nationalistic grounds.

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