Maldives Airport Co. expects to take over the island nation's main airport Saturday, as a deadline given by the government to an Indian-Malaysian consortium to hand over the facility expires Friday, the managing director of the state-run company said Tuesday.
"We are applying for an aerodrome license with the civil-aviation authority sometime today," Mohamed Ibrahim told The Wall Street Journal over the phone from Male, the country's capital. "And, we are definitely going to run the airport, as we had done for 40 years before the consortium took over two years back."
The Maldives government said Monday it expects to take over the airport's operations over the next few days, shrugging off a Singapore court ruling that stayed a government notice for the consortium of India's GMR Infrastructure Ltd. and Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd to terminate operations there.
"The Singapore court can't pass judgments on a sovereign country," Masood Imad, Maldives' presidential media secretary, said Monday.
GMR Infrastructure, in a late-night statement Monday, said it still expects the Maldives government to "respect the court order."
"They (the government) participated in the hearing and were party to the court proceedings," the statement added.
The Maldives government notice issued Nov. 27 had ordered that the consortium should relinquish airport operations within seven days. The government later extended the deadline to Friday.
In 2010, under the government of former president Mohamed Nasheed, GMR Infrastructure and Malaysia Airports Holdings submitted the winning bid to build and run a new terminal at Male airport, and to operate the entire airport for 25 years. The consortium took over the airport's operations from Maldives Airport Co. in November that year.
The airport deal cancellation comes amid a feud over political control of the Maldives, after the democratically elected government of Mr. Nasheed was overthrown in February, in what has been described as a coup by some police officers and members of opposition parties, though the incumbent government insists he stepped down on his own.
Mr. Ibrahim said Maldives Airport Co. would also reconsider the decision to build a new passenger terminal. A major part of the contract was given to the GMR Infrastructure-Malaysia Airports consortium.
"I will tell the company's board that Male airport is more in need of a new runway, rather than a passenger terminal," he said.
The Maldives government had said it considers the airport privatization contract invalid, mainly because the new operators are collecting development fees from passengers without parliament's approval.
Mr. Ibrahim said Maldives Airport Co. won't charge any airport-development fees, since parliament never approved the civil-aviation authority to collect such fees from passengers.
Monday, a Maldives government official, who didn't want to be named, said the final settlement of the dispute could involve Maldives Airport Co. returning the entire $220 million that he said the consortium has invested so far.
Mr. Ibrahim said it is "too early to talk of compensation."
Meantime, an Indian government official, who didn't wish to be named, said no decision has been taken on freezing the country's aid to the Maldives over the contract-cancellation issue, as reported in the local media.
He said the next date for India to give its annual aid of $25 million to the Maldives is March 31, 2013.
"We are reviewing all options on the GMR issue, but there's no specificity on what action we would take," he added.
The official added the foreign minister of the Maldives spoke to India's foreign minister this morning. "The Maldives minister said he will be sending a communication on the entire GMR issue to India soon. Let's see what they have to say," he added.