Seeking facilities to conduct hydrographic surveys by ourselves: Pres

President Dr Mohamed Muizzu has stated the government is implementing efforts to seek facilities and machines so as to perform hydrographic surveys through the country’s own means.

Speaking at a ceremony in Baa atoll Eydhafushi, the President highlighted that the Ministry of Defence is making efforts to obtain the facilities required for conducting the hydrographic surveys by the country itself and that this will allow Maldives to conduct the underwater surveys of the country by themselves.

“We will then acquire all insights of our underwater features by ourselves. With this information, the charts will also be drawn by us. This is the work we are presently doing,” said the President.

The former administration of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and the Indian government had come to an agreement to conduct the surveys of Maldives’ underwater features. President Dr Muizzu's present government had determined not to extend the contract at the beginning of his term.

“We decided not to renew the agreement entered into with the Indian government to scan and acquire all insights and sceneries of our underwater body. All these underwater details are the property of our heritage. They depart after performing scans in manners that acquaint them to all insights [of Maldives’ underwater body], draw maps [from the surveys] and to top it all, we end up having to purchase it from them as well,” the President remarked.

While this agreement had garnered many criticisms towards the government at the time, former President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s administration had maintained that this implementation was being performed under previous agreements settled between India and former governments.

Efforts to conduct the most recent hydrography survey in collaboration with India’s Hydrography Office was launched in January 2021 and is proceeding in distributed categories.

At the press conference held to address the initiation of this survey, Joint Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, Midhfa Naeem had clarified that this development was included in the agreement signed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 during his visit to Maldives.

In response to questions surrounding the dangers to national security at the time, Maldives National Defence Force had affirmed that the project poses no danger to the nation and that the survey is conducted to identify the state of the atoll reefs. They had further assured that the benefit of this work will be attained by Maldivian travelers as well.

The former President had obtained the approval of the parliament to facilitate hydrography services in Maldives and confer the facility to the Defence Ministry. Amid the passing of this motion, the parliament had summoned it to the 241 Committee in order to investigate the accusations by the opposition that the agreement signed between India and the Maldivian governments contains titles that poses threats to the national security of the country.

Amid this, the Defence Minsitry had maintained that the survey will provide notable assistance to the protection of the country's environment, allowing the reduction of seacrafts running aground the reefs while also facilitating the identification of the most appropriate sea routes for traveling.