Having scored the highest on service charge earnings for the month of December 2019, Cheval Blanc Randheli has made the top spot in the Maldives Service Charge list.

The publicized list by Maldives Service Charge reveals details of service charges earned by resorts who disclose the information.

As such, it highlights that Randheli paid the highest service charge for its employees during the past month of December, recorded at USD 1,903.28 which is approximately MVR 29,348, a USD 573 increase compared to November.

Randheli came in second on the list during November, having paid USD 1,329.31 to its staff.

Landing the second spot on the list for December is The St. Regis Vommuli Resort which paid its employees USD 948.67, approximately MVR 14,628, which is an increase compared to November when the resort made the fifth spot having given their employees USD 789.81 as service charge.

Velaa Private Island, which topped the list during November, came third on December’s list, having paid USD 931.84 or MVR 14,368.97 per staff, which is a drop compared to its rates during November which were recorded at USD 1,329.31.

Making the 10th spot on the list is Taj Exotica Resort and Spa which disbursed USD 760 or MVR 11,719 per staff during December.

While the issue of resort workers not being paid enough in service charges has been mounting in recent days, Minister of Tourism Ali Waheed recently came under fire for comments he made at a press conference regarding the issue. He is to have said that resorts pay their employees an “adequate” service charge, which took social media by storm.

As such, resort employees from all corners have been targeting criticism at the minister and asking him to “spend a month in the shoes of a room boy or waiter” in order to decide if the service charge is “adequate”. While Waheed has been deemed ignorant for the extent of his knowledge about how resort workers are being treated, they continue to assert that the service charges paid to them do not do justice the amount of work they actually put in.

Late-December, a resort worker, Ahmed Shimhaz was sacked for disclosing the amount paid to local workers at Hondaafushi Island Resort in service charge. Ever since the incident made the spotlight, resort workers have churned public outrage. However, government officials and fellow ministers continue to defend Minister Waheed, who later changed the context of his comments during the press conference, claiming that the media was attempting to mislead the public.

The ever-drawn-out issue has had the industry workers expressing incessant dissatisfaction for a long time with the government yet to reach a solution. Further, complaints regarding discrimination in wages for local and expatriate workers has also been a snowballing issue.