Villa Group has revealed that they expect to disburse employee wages totaling MVR 1,000 per employee over the next three months.

This was revealed by the group via a circular which reads that the decision was reached owing to the current Covid-19 situation in the Maldives, which has impacted local businesses, especially in the tourism industry, heavily.

Although the occupancy rates at resorts had dropped significantly during the past month, Villa Group has noted that salaries were given to their employees in full, with not allowance cuts, for the month of March.

During a time that the company’s revenue has dropped severely due to the impact on tourist arrivals, Villa has stressed that they have been obliged to cut back staff salaries for April, May and June.

Further, the group notes that resort employees will be given their salaries even if they are back home and it will reach a decision on their employment if they are unable to boost their resorts operations by June. Each employee will be notified of the group’s decision, reads the circular.

Highlighting that the company is monitoring the Covid-19 situation on a daily basis, Villa noted that they will be reimbursing their resort staff in accordance with an improvement in the situation and tourist arrivals as well as resort operations.

Stressing that this is the “most difficult decision” the company has ever made thus far, the circular goes on to note that this decision was made as the company does not wish to terminate any of their employees. With this being said, Villa Group has assured their employees that the revenue they collect during these trying times will be distributed among the staff evenly.

However, salaries will be gradually enhanced should their revenue increase.

The group is founded and owned by MP for Maamigilli constituency Gasim Ibrahim, who owns several resorts and business under the Villa Group. However, the group comes under fire occasionally for their failure in providing adequate salaries and service charge for employees, even before the Covid-19 crisis hit the Maldives.

Maldives suspended the issuance of on-arrival visas to inbound tourists on 27 March and the tourism industry was one of the first industries in the Maldives to be hit hard by the pandemic, even before the first positive cases began emerging in the island nation.