Siyam's company to take legal action citing wrongful seizure of Minaavaru

Prominent businessman and MP for Meedhoo constituency Ahmed Siyam's company has stated that it will be taking legal action against the government's seizure of Minaavaru, an agricultural island, claiming it was wrongful.

Minaavaru was leased to Siyam's Impex Fisheries in February 2010 for a period of 21 years. With six years of the lease remaining, the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Welfare issued a 14 day notice on Monday to vacate the island.

A company official told Mihaaru News that they are working on finding a resolution to this issue, adding that if necessary, the matter will be taken to court.

They said that a team from the ministry had gone to Minaavaru in August last year to conduct an audit. No reports from the audit have been shared with the company, they said.

The official said that when they had reached out to the ministry regarding this, they had been informed that if there are no issues that need revising, the ministry will not share the report.

"We followed up as well. When we did, they said that as a norm, they will communicate about the report only if there is something that needs correcting. Since there were no such issues, no communication was made on the matter since then," they said.

The official said that just a day before offices closed for the last tenth of Ramadan, the ministry had sent a letter to the company. In it, they referred to the audit conducted in August, and said that things on the island were not right, they said.

The letter granted them 30 days to revise the issues, and submit a report within the next five days. However, according to the official, the letter failed to specify which issues needed fixing.

"The letter granted a period of 30 days, including government holidays. After the letter, there followed a long holiday, the government holidays and eid holidays. We could not figure out what we had to correct. The letter did not specify that," the official said.

Later, the company hired a consultant and drafted a report, which was submitted to the ministry on April 21. On April 24, three staff members of the ministry went to the island for monitoring and said things there were correct, the official said.

"They confidently said that things [on the island] were correct. So I don't know what happened to the reports."

"The ministry's letter claimed that we did not revise practices despite being given a time period within which to do, didn't it? We only got about 10 working days, excluding government holidays, to do the work."

The official said that the company had requested for a time extension due to the high number of holidays, which the ministry had rejected.

The official maintains that the ministry cannot issue an order to vacate the island in this manner, stating that rent had been paid regularly.

"If it's a non-financial breach, they cannot terminate it. The most they can do is issue a fine. But they did not take that step. They cited a wrong article and terminated it."

The official further said that as per the law, if the island is being seized for any purpose other than defence, a two year period has to be granted, alongside compensation for costs. However, the notice did not refer to this.

"The notice even said that unless we remove all goods and property there within 14 days, that will also be seized by the State. So we will go to court. We are ready to do whatever we can about this. Because this was done unfairly and unlawfully," the official said.

Siyam is also the leader of the Maldives Development Alliance (MDA). MDA was previously a coalition partner of ruling People's National Congress, but President Dr Mohamed Muizzu has since said that MDA is no longer with the government coalition.