Would be easy to regain control of airport: Abbas Adil Riza

Government Spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza has said that it should be ‘easy as pie’ to regain control of Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) from its current operator GMR.

Speaking at a function held by Jumhooree Party (JP) last night, Abbas disagreed with Attorney General (AG) Azima Shakoor’s statement that it would be extremely difficult to regain INIA from GMR, and said that no patriotic Maldivian would agree with the AG.

“INIA is an asset which belongs to Maldivians. It has been snatched from Maldivians by a group of people, and we have to get it back,” he said.

Abbas stressed that he will not accept Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) delaying its investigation of this matter.

He stressed that JP also believes that ACC should conduct this investigation, and that it will not accept ACC’s excuse of financial restrictions, as a reason for delaying this investigation.

“It’s too late to talk about finances. This is just an excuse. I don’t believe it, neither does JP,” he said.

AG Azima Shakoor said yesterday that the agreement with GMR is economically unsustainable; however, terminating or changing it would be extremely difficult and could have legal consequences.