I just finished watching a TVM Live Show on Housing issues in the country in connection with the release of the Report on the Assessment of the Housing Situation in the Maldives. I made several attempts to place a call to raise a point to Hon. Aslam Shakir, the Minister of State for Housing, and Mr. Zahid, the deputy chief of the Human Rights Commission.
I wanted to ask what the 12,000 families who are subject to “hell-holes” in the country should expect within the short term and within the full five-year mandate of the current government. How many of these families should expect to have decent and affordable housing within the first two years and how many within the full five years? What regions would be the beneficiaries of these housing projects and how many units would the respective regions expect to get within the short-term and the full-term?
I also wanted to ask whether the government would execute the projects through the provincial municipalities that are to be established or through the Finance Ministry via international competitive bidding? Would the government outsource the projects on BOT basis or as provincial municipality managed and operated projects?
Was there an estimate of a budget for the cost of providing adequate housing to the 12,000 families who lived in the gutters.
There is no doubt that affordable housing is one of the most attractive pledges of the MDP government. Timely action in a focused manner would be required to ensure efficienty and effectiveness of achieving the pledge within the five-year term of the first MDP government. The project seems to be still at a conceptual level. There is a need for speedy action.
