Gasim: Difficult to give service charge plus salary

Maamigilli MP Qasim Ibrahim has stated that the opinions of tourism industry leaders need to taken to find the difficulties they face in providing the service charges along with the salaries of resort employees.

The Committee on Economic Affairs of the parliament has decided to recommend that an amendment be brought to the law so that it would allocate at least 10 percent as Service Charge for resort employees.

Qasim was debating on the proposed amendment presented by Central Maafannu MP Ibrahim Rasheed (Bodey) and argued that such a measure needs to be revised a lot and researched before making it into law. He also stated that he was not against the idea.

Qasim also said that some services are provided on a credit basis by resorts and if the credit amount is not reimbursed, resorts may face difficulties in providing the service charge in addition to the salary of the employees.

"Are you aware that service charges are gained by charging a percentage for the services a resort provides? And that sometimes resorts can go bankrupt due to unpaid invoices that can take months to be paid and eventually cause hundreds and millions of dollars in losses," said Qasim, who runs many notable resorts in the Maldives.

Qasim also noted that the State Bank of India helps the Maldivian economy a lot and criticized the decision to reduce the amount of money it provides to the country.

"Only by talking to the people running the industry will you know the difficulties they might face to provide the service charge and the salaries of their employees," 

"If we are trying to bring a measure that will jolt the economy and bring changes to the economy, I believe that we should do a great amount of research into the matter," said Qasim

Section (1) of Article (51) of the Employment Law states that employees are entitled to the service charge after an administrative fee of one percent is reduced from it by the end of the month.