MACL unhappy with Mihaaru News for coverage of Seaplane Terminal Corruption Scandal

MACL demands Mihaaru news to be more responsible while covering the seaplane terminal corruption scandal. A heated statement on twitter stated that “We strongly oppose to the article written by @Mihaarunews today. No staff of MACL has been terminated regarding any sea plane issue. MACL has a good track record of retaining its staff & on rare occassions if any body is terminated, that would be on fair grounds. “

The leaked Seaplane terminal audit report revealed that the state will lose MVR 632 million over the new seaplane terminal. This is the amount that the state will forgo if they go ahead and hand the terminal over to TMA for operations.

The special audit was commissioned after MP Yaugoob Abdulla raised concerns over MACL taking the decision to hand over exclusive rights to the new seaplane terminal to TMA.

According to the report, the new 4-story seaplane terminal cost MACL USD $5 million and BUJC, the Chinese company building the terminal said it would be operational by July 2020 even though MACL states that the terminal would be operational by May 2020.

The report also evaluated 3 options for MACL to manage operations of the new terminal:

1. To operate the terminal and lease it to operators to run their own terminals.
2. To handover the management of the new terminal to TMA
3. To have MACL run the terminal and lease it out at existing market rates.

The report stated that the most profitable option for MACL would be to manage the operations by itself. However, if they hand over operations to TMA, MACL will only generate a revenue of USD 5.6 million. This means that MACL will suffer a loss of USD 41.6 million if the company proceeds with the handover.

It has been 1 year since an MD has not been assigned to the company and further allegations of corruption have been made amidst the construction of the terminal and questions have been raised on the capability of MACL’s management to handle VIA’s operations