Business owners protest over revocation of permit for night market

Business owners have staged a protest following Health Protection Agency’s (HPA) decision to revoke the permit issued to hold the night market on Friday, citing violations of their COVID-19 safety guidelines.

The protest took place at Rasfannu area, where protesters held up posters expressing their views.

The protestors raised their voices claiming that HPA has been issuing permit for other events after the revocation of the permit granted to hold the night market.

“Very unjustly acting in prejudice against certain people,” a protester had said.

Whilst several different night markets have been held perpetually over the course of last month, another one was scheduled to be held for a period of seven days, starting yesterday.

The main concern of the protesters was over the fact that payments had been collected from them for the stalls.

Whereas there were about 240 slots – tables for the night market were sold at a rate between MVR 7,500 and MVR 15,000.

“We have no issue if the night market cannot be held. But, we would be reimbursed the payments taken from us as well as the money we have spent here,” a business owner protesting at Rasfannu area had told Sun.

On Wednesday, Male’ City Council announced that they are halting the issuance of permits for night markets on the instruction of HPA – in light of the increasing COVID-19 cases in Male’ area. Mere hours after, HPA announced the decision to grant permit to hold the night market as many participants had voiced out their concerns.

The permit to hold the night market was given under the condition that participants and attendees abide by all the guidelines set out by HPA. They include distancing between stalls and making arrangements at the night market in a manner that promotes less crowding.

HPA revoked this permit on Friday, citing violations of their guidelines. They detailed the decision was made following inspections conducted on the night market area which revealed crowding, failure to social distancing in addition to people being negligent in wearing masks.

Therefore, they said that they had informed the City Council to cancel the night market.