Court issues injunction to prevent government officials going ashore Alidhoo and Kudarah

The Civil Court has issued an injunction to prevent government officials going ashore Alif Dhaalu Kudarah Resort and Haa Alifu Alidhoo resorts to take over the two islands.

Alidhoo and Kudarah are operated by Yacht Tours Maldives, a company in which Kaashidhoo MP Abdullah Jabir is a shareholder, and are accused of having failed to pay over $7 million to the government.

Yacht Tours filed two cases to Civil Court today, requesting the court to declare void the government’s documents indicating that the agreements for the resorts had been terminated following failure by the resorts to pay $7 million as rent and fines to the government.

As part of its case, Yacht Tours had requested for an injunction to prevent government officials going ashore Alidhoo and Kudarah.

Chairman of Yacht Tours Abdullah Jabir told Sun Online tonight that the injunction will be in place until a decision is made on the issue by the court, following a case being filed by the company regarding the termination of the agreements.

“The government and Tourism Ministry have been ordered to halt all efforts related to terminating the two agreements. We have suffered serious losses, we will also press charges in this regard,” Jabir said.

A team from the Tourism Ministry tried to go ashore Kudarah Resort last night, but were refused entry by the people on the island.

According to the agreement with Kudarah, the island should be handed over immediately when the team visits the island after the agreement is terminated. According to the agreement with Alidhoo, the transfer should be finalised within seven days of the ministry’s visit to the island.

The government terminated the agreements with the two islands last Tuesday. The islands had been given notice on two occasions after they failed to pay rent and fines.

A Tourism Minstry official said earlier that the agreements with the two resorts were terminated following their failure to pay rent for the first quarter of this year, as per the second notice sent regarding failure to pay rent and fines to the government.

“When we sent the first notice, they agreed to pay the rent in instalments over three years and fines in instalments over ten years. But we terminated the agreement when they didn’t pay rent even after being sent two notices. We will go to take over the islands this week,” he said.