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At present, there are 1,663 employees, including 110 Indians. Imad said the government now had the long and difficult task of weeding out corruption and inefficiency.
The two sides have agreed on a three-week transition period before the Maldivians start running the airport on their own.
Disha Kanwar adds from New Delhi: The Maldivian government on Saturday said GMR had been disqualified during the technical bid for GMIAL (GMR Male International Airport Ltd). GMR did not respond on this specific issue till the time of going to the press.
Chief Financial Officer Siddharth Kapur had on December 5 said the International Financial Corporation ( IFC) had conducted a transparent and robust evaluation process and the company qualified for legal, technical and financial evaluation of the bid. Based on the IFC bid formula, GMR-MAHB (Malaysian Airports) consortium emerged as the bid winner.
The consortium had paid the Maldives government an upfront equity of $78 million, Kapur had added. Imad, however, said the evaluation committee had issues with the GMR-MAHB proposal, and clarified their concerns.
"Even after clarifying, the committee did not find the proposal satisfactory. So, on the last day of the technical bid evaluation, the committee failed GMR," he added.
This was met with much hostility from Halcrow, a consultancy company involved in the process. The committee was pressured to re-evaluate its decision. With five members in the committee, it reconvened, and the decision was to pass the GMR consortium on three-two vote, including the vote of the chair, Imad added.
Rebutting the collusion of IFC, Halcrow and GMR consortium during the bid process, Kapur denied any commercial relationship between GMR and IFC. Kapur said: "Dr Saeed (special advisor to the President) has mixed up IFC with International Financial Center (IFC), being developed at our Hyderabad airport. Halcrow's master-plan was developed much before the bidding process started and was shared with all the bidders during RFP."