Malé, Maldives – The Parliament’s Committee on Economic Affairs has finalized that cafés, restaurants, hotels, and other eateries will not receive compensations for their losses due to continued extension and strengthening of precautionary measures to stop the spread of Covid-19.
The opening and closing hours of restaurants and cafés were changed countless time due to Covid-19 restrictions. Many of these places have a peak number of customers at night and have suffered irrecoverable losses. Almost all café, restaurants and hotels have incurred damages.
Last March, Member of Parliament representing Hoarafushi constituency proposed a bill to the Parliament, regarding the losses of café restaurants.
After investigating the bill, the Committee on Economic Affairs decided that they could not go with it as the budget for this year could not allow such expenses to be made without undergoing deficit, which would cause a lot of problems to Maldives.
The committee, however, added that further measurements against Covid-19 in the future must be taken after minimizing the loss that businesses such as café and restaurants would incur.
Earlier the Director General of the Health Protection Agency (HPA) of Maldives, Maimoona Aboobakr had explained the reason for strengthening the preventive measures put in place for cafés and restaurants with regards to Covid-19. She stated that that the decision had to be made as such locations carry a higher risk factor of spreading the virus.
Maimoona further explained that the degree of risk cafés and restaurants hold when it comes to the spread of the virus is higher than that of shops and highlighted that dine-in options in cafés and restaurants would require customers to remove their masks as well.
Health Protection Agency (HPA) reports that Maldives has recorded the 150th Covid-19 death today since the pandemic began in March 2020.
