Ministry of Tourism handed over collection of all tourism-related payments to Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA) on Sunday as a fool proof move against corruption.
Tourism minister Moosa Zameer and Comissioner General of Taxation Yazeed Mohamed signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Sunday. The agreement states that acquisition costs and other payments for islands and lands leased for resort development as well as authorisation and renewal fees previously paid to the ministry will be collected by MIRA.
Minister Zameer declared that this development is part of President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s efforts to protect revenue from the tourism sector following the infamous Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) corruption scandal, the largest case of embezzlement in the history of the Maldives.
He highlighted that the greatest benefit of placing MIRA in charge of collecting payments is the ease it would bring to the workload of tourism ministry staff and its budget, and maintaining the statistics and audit of tourism revenue under a single roof.
Transferring payment collection of tourism revenue to MIRA comes long in the wake of the MMPRC corruption case, which had eseen a staggering MVR 1.2 billion (USD 79 million) embezzled from the state via island leases and acquisition costs of islands and lagoons.
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