Companies failing to pay expat fees to be removed from system

The Ministry of Homeland Security and Technology said Saturday that it would be removing companies that fail to regularly pay work permits, quota fees, and fines from the expat system.

The ministry published a list of 1,026 companies with outstanding fees and fines related to migrant workers exceeding MVR 100,000 earlier on July 24^th and ordered these companies to pay the outstanding amount before August 12^th, but extended this duration until August 31^st in its Saturday announcement.

The ministry later said that only 20 companies had settled the outstanding payments before August 15^th but added that other companies with significant outstanding payments have been paying in installments.

Companies that fail to pay their fines and fees within the provided window will be effectively suspended or removed from the expat system, Home Ministry added.

The ministry, in the list it shared, included companies with outstanding work permit and quota fees and cancellation fines.

The listed companies owed MVR 672 million to the Maldives government. The ministry added that it had recovered MVR 182 million out of this outstanding total by last Wednesday evening.

President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, while speaking at the Independence Day celebration revealed that the state was owed MVR 13 billion in outstanding payments by multiple parties, and assured his administration will recover this total.