GMR Manager says his company is not worried about Maldives’ political debate

In a press conference, GMR Manager, P Sripathi, told reporters that the construction of the new Male’ International Airport will start by the end of this year. He said that there are more than 100 items that needs to be agreed and signed off between the Maldives Airport Company Limited (MACL) board and the consortium but they expect to star the work within the next 9-10 months.

Regarding the controversy over privatization of the airport, he said that his company is not worried about it for it is not in their jurisdiction. Sripathi said that his company is not involved in any illegal affairs. He said that they should not interfere with the ongoing political debate inside the country and this debate over privatization has taken place for many years. Moreover, the bidding process has been overlooked by the International Finance Corp. of the World Bank which gave a very positive report about the process.

He said, “The first phase is organising the finances and transitioning the airport from a government-run enterprise to a privately-run enterprise,……The transition will be a new thing and we will be there to help with that. We have done such things in other places, and we know how to go about it.”

The GMR-Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad (MAHB) consortium own the bid to manage the Male’ International Airport for 25 years which would be further expanded to another 10 years. Within this time, the consortium would build a new terminal.