Ex-President Yameen: Government should be able to pay back a MVR 2B loan in 2 years

The current administration should be able to pay back a MVR 2 billion loan within two years, says former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom.

Speaking during a press conference at Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) headquarters last Monday night, Yameen, the Leader of PPM said Maldives was deep in a debt of MVR 28.5 billion when he assumed office in 2013. And that the debt had risen to MVR 47 billion when he left office this year.

Yameen defended his decision to take loans, and said the loans had been necessary for infrastructure development of Maldives.

He said that the interest rate of the loans he took were lower than four percent, “a bargain”.

‘There’s something I want to say to the people in the islands. How many islands had water and sanitation before our 5-year rule? How many islands had roads? How many islands had harbors big enough for the people to be content with? How many islands had clean drinking water?” said Yameen.

He said that claims the debt incurred for his mega infrastructure development projects was not possible to settle was difficult to hear. He said that no administration in recent times has not had a MVR 2 billion debt in its annual budget.

“If a 5-year administration is unable to settle a debt of MVR 2,000 million per year they are incompetent. We settled the MVR 30,000 million debt I mentioned before within three years, or three-and-a-half years. So a MVR 2 billion per annum debt should be settled in 2 years,” said Yameen.

Monday night’s press conference marked Yameen’s first public appearance since the end of his presidency on November 17.