President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has assured that the construction of the flats for the Maldives Police Service (MPS) personnel will be completed this year. He made the statement while speaking at the ceremony held to mark the 89th anniversary of the police service in the Maldives.
Speaking at the ceremony, President Solih said the administration has taken up the responsibility to solve the longstanding issue of lack of housing for MPS personnel and signed a contract to complete the construction of the flats this year. The president noted the project had been transferred to different governments over the years but that his administration aims to complete the project.
MPS personnel have expressed concern over the delays in completing the construction of the flats, for which they had taken huge loans and made down payments. They have also expressed concern over having to face financial difficulties after the end of the loan grace period.
Ministry of National Planning, Housing and Infrastructure contracted Amin Construction Private Limited to undertake the finishing of 361 flats built for MPS personnel under the POLCO project in December 2021.
The POLCO project is an eight-year-old project that had been stalled for more than five years after the previous administration terminated the contract with the company that was initially awarded the project. The recipients of the flats had already been announced by then, but no work has been carried out on the flats since 2016.
The project to complete the finishing of the flats was contracted to Amin Construction after several delays. Under the project, Amin Construction is tasked with completing the finishing of 361 flats within 8 months. The project was contracted at a price of USD17.8 million.
The POLCO flats, located in Hulhumale’ Phase I, are 1,100sqft units consisting of three rooms each. Over 50% of the construction of the flats had been completed when the project was stalled over five years ago.