Parliament accepts revenue bills

Parliament has today accepted three revenue generation bills proposed by the government.

Chair of today’s sitting, Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim also decided to forward the bills to a committee of the full parliament, and begin the committee review today.

Ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) filed for today’s extraordinary sitting after the parliament, on 14 January, failed to accept the bills among discord and resistance from the opposition.

The bill seeking to increase GST from 8 to 12 percent was accepted with 37 votes in favour and the bill seeking to continue the collection of Tourism Bed Tax until 31 December 2014 was accepted by 38 votes in favour.

Bed tax was discontinued on 31 December 2013, a deadline set by the Tourism Act introduced 14 years ago.

Parliament went into a two-month recess starting 30 December and is scheduled to reconvene in March 2014 for its final session, which will end on 30 April.