Cafés and restaurants to remain open until 10:30pm amid business concerns

Amid business concerns, cafés and restaurants in the Greater Male' area have been permitted to remain open until 10:30pm, with earlier restrictions having been dissolved on Sunday.

While the Health Protection Agency (HPA) had previously extended restrictions on operations of cafés and restaurants between 20 and 24 March, the authority had later released an order signed by the Director General of Public Health Maimoona Aboobakuru dissolving the restrictions during the state of public health emergency announced across Maldives.

The statement signed by the Director General of Public Health highlights that she, as per the powers vested in her under the Public Health Protection Act, had deigned to allow cafés and restaurants will now be permitted to remain open until 10:30pm.

With the latest order, the previous restrictions issued on the operations of cafés and restaurants in the Greater Male' area have become void. The changes to HPA's stance on allowing cafés and restaurants to remain open comes at a time the Restaurant Association of Maldives (RAM), and the Maldives Eateries Union, had been protesting previous restrictions issued for their business operations in the nation's populous capital region.

The parties, representing business interests of cafés and restaurants in the Male' area, had threatened to go on strike to protest restrictions earlier this week. They had stated that they would only resume services if HPA backtracked and reduced restrictions, with over 200 parties set to take part in the strike.

President of the Restaurant Association of Maldives Hamid Afeef had, earlier in the week, expressed that HPA had "sacrificed" their industry and left it in a comatose state, claiming that it was illegitimate for HPA to restrict cafés and restaurants while other businesses went on operating in clear violation of social distancing and Covid-19 regulations.