Maldives project safe despite political storm – GMR

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

The GMR group has said the current crisis in Maldives will not affect its Male airport development plans, Hindustan Times has said.

Maldives plunged into a crisis last week when its cabinet resigned en masse, protesting lack of cooperation from the opposition controlled parliament.

GMR, which operates the Delhi airport, won the bid to build, operate, modernise and expand the Male International Airport (MIA).

As per reports in the local media, opposition parties have sought an injunction from a court to delay implementation of the agreement.

Spokesperson for the joint opposition committee, Imad Solih, was quoted saying, “(the agreement) contains suspicious (elements) and issues relating to corruption.” The opposition also accused the government of not consulting the Maldives Airports Company board members on the deal.

Kiran Kumar Grandhi, Chairman (Airports), GMR, said he did not think the crisis would affect the deal in any way. “The deal is done and sealed. We don’t foresee any problems,” he said.

“It’s all been done in a very transparent manner. The international bidding process was monitored by IFC, Washington,” Grandhi added.

GMR officials, who did not wish to be named, said there appeared to be a deliberate attempt on the part of some to create problems. “The process has been on for the last 10 months. Now, suddenly they have woken up and started making all kinds of allegations,” an official said.

The commercial alliance between Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) and India’s GMR Group continues to thrive in the airport sector and the completion of the Indira Gandhi International Airport’s third terminal mirrors another success venture.

MAHB was part of the international consortium led by GMR, a leading Bangalore-headquartered infrastructure conglomerate that took 37 months to complete the swanky US$2.6 billion (RM9.1 billion) terminal, also named T3.

GMR holds a 54 per cent stake, while Airports Authority of India 26 per cent, MAHB 10 per cent and Germany’s Fraport 10 per cent, to form a joint venture company Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), which is involved in modernising India’s main gateway.

Recently, GMR tied up with MAHB to secure a bid to modernise Male International Airport, estimated to be worth US$373 million (RM1.3 billion), and in Turkey both pooled their expertise in 2007 to develop the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport.

Reader Comments

Post a comment

 characters available



The opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and commenters and do not necessarily represent the views of Miadhu News Daily. We do not take responsibility for the opinions, facts, or claims presented by individual authors or commenters, and reserve the right to moderate or delete inappropriate comments.

Miadhu Opinion Poll
  • Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.