Minister Waheed is capable enough to solve the issues with service charge, minimum wage: Nasheed

Speaker of Parliament and former president, Mohamed Nasheed has defended Minister of Tourism Ali Waheed stating that he has full confidence in the minister's ability to solve issues related to service charge and minimum wage.

While the minister recently came under fire for comments he was reported to have made regarding service charge, Nasheed defended the minister via Twitter on Saturday.

Nasheed stated that the minister was once the chairperson of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and thus will be familiar with the policies of MDP. He went onto highlight that many positive changes in the tourism sector have been observed since the minister took office and therefore, he has full confidence in the minister's ability to solve the issues related to minimum wage and service charge.

The minister faced criticism from the public especially by local resort workers after he was reported to have claimed that resorts in the Maldives pay their local employees an adequate amount for service charge.

Following the public outrage, the minister responded by expressing his disappointment at the media claiming that his words were twisted and the public was misled.

The Ministry of Tourism has since released a press statement, claiming that the minister did not actually state whether service charge for local was adequate or not but that the parity between locals and expatriates for service charge was good. Further, it declared that the minister was referring to "key" local investors and not all investors.

Complaints of inadequate service charge from resorts owned by Maldivians have been rampant for a long period of time. Additionally, complaints regarding pay discrimination between locals and expatriates are also reported. No proper solution for these issues has been reached yet.