Save the Beach Maldives Left in Limbo as City Council Dismantles Workspace Without Warning

“On Friday morning, I woke up to a call from a volunteer who said Male City Council is removing the tin roofing at the workstation. I was shocked because I wasn’t given any prior warning,” said Hassan Ahmed (Beybe), President of the environmental NGO Save the Beach Maldives. 

In our exclusive interview with Beybe, he revealed that the City Council started dismantling the headquarters given to the NGO in Villimale last Friday, with no warning to vacate the space.

advertisement

Beybe said that he was able to get the police to intervene and halt the dismantling on Friday but the work continued the next day. 

“I tried to contact the councillors, or anyone from the council. It was Eid public holiday but they had workers working overtime to do this but I wasn’t able to reach anyone from the council.”

“We even wrote an official letter from Save The Beach but we have not gotten a response.”

The workstation which is located adjacent to the Villingili beach was awarded to the NGO in 2012 as part of a contract with the City Council to keep the beaches of Villimale clean.

Volunteers of the NGO clean three beaches in Villimale, collecting over 6kgs from the beaches everyday, Beybe said. The NGO has placed 49 dustbins in the beaches that are cleared daily.

“When we started, Villingili beach was very unclean. We collected 3 tonnes of trash in 2 hours in our first ever clean up. It was a big problem, and no one was paying any attention to it, so we started doing this”, Beybe told MV+.

The workstation given to the NGO is being used to run the organisation’s education programmes as well as to store the recyclable trash collected from the beach.

“We send over 38 to 40 jumbo bags of recyclable materials to Thilafushi every month,” Beybe said.

In a statement released yesterday, Save The Beach Maldives also revealed that the organisation finds itself in a “situation of uncertainty” but the organisation will continue to clean the beaches and emptying the dustbins placed in the beaches. 

The council’s actions follow a history of disputes, notably involving the council halting the construction of a marine center at the workstation, prompting the environmental NGO to seek legal recourse.

“The dispute started when the City Council gave us permission to build a marine center on this land but when we started construction and invested in it, they ordered us to stop. We then wrote letters to the Council which went unanswered so we were forced to go to court.”

Despite the Civil Court ruling the Council’s orders “unlawful”, Save The Beach Maldives was unable to continue the work as the contract with the Council had expired during trial.

“But the court cannot extend the contract. Only the City Council can do it. We were unable to build it because of the City Council. It is a huge loss to us. After the ruling, we appealed it to the High Court, and the Council has done this before the High Court has ruled on the matter.”

Male City Council has not responded to calls for comment at the time of writing.

The organisation said it will not remove its dustbins unless it is certain that someone else will take over its work. However, as the workspace is now compromised, the organisation will not be able to commit to continue recyclable collection.

“During recent years our project has continued without much support from the government. That said, the fact that Save The Beach at least had a space for work greatly assured the continuation of our efforts. With our final resources seized, it is difficult to visualize a way forward.”