Members of the public are voicing their concern as the Parliament is set to go on recess next week after the Government said that only the legislative house can iron out the crinkles brought by the newly installed Plastic Bag fee.
Since last Tuesday every business activity operating in the Maldives are required to charge MVR 2 as a Plastic Bag Fee for each plastic bag sold or provide free of charge to customers at the point of sale.
With the fee affecting all businesses, the price of plastic bags has skyrocketed in the last few days with a bundle of 100 plastic bags now being sold for MVR 200.
While the public has aimed criticism at the government, in a statement issued last night the Environment Ministry said that when the Waste Management Act was first submitted to the parliament, it included an exemption to plastic bag charges on plastic bag bundles of more than 50 bags.
But the Ministry said this point was removed when the law was passed. It further said that even though this article was not included in the law, the government decided to ratify the act as it was necessary for Waste Management and planned to submit these issues as Amendments to the law.
Amid this, the Parliament is set to go on recess next week and this has further ired the people. Meanwhile, the MP for Villimale' Constituency Ahmed Usham said last night via Twitter that the government never intended to solve the current issue.
He said via Twitter that the government of Ibrahim Mohamed Solih ratified the Waste Management Act last December and knowing that the Plastic fee charge would be implemented within 4 months, the government only submitted an amendment to the law on the 27th of March.
