Parliamentary sittings postponed

The Parliament has announced the decision to postpone sittings to next week.

The Parliament was scheduled to reconvene after the Eid al-Adha holidays on Tuesday. However, Parliament’s Media and Communications Director Hassan Ziyau confirms the sitting scheduled for 09:00 am on Tuesday has been cancelled.

“Parliament’s Speaker, President Mohamed Nasheed has made the decision to postpone the 24th sitting of the second parliamentary session of this year scheduled for tomorrow, August 4, 2020, to next week,” said the Parliament in a press statement.

While the Parliament will not hold regular sittings, the Secretariat of the Parliament will remain open and parliamentary committees will continue their work this week.

Ziyau said that only a minimal number of staffers to facilitate the work of committees will report to work, while the remaining staffers will work from home.

The decision comes after the President made the decision to close government offices for the remainder of this week, as Maldives faces a surge in coronavirus cases with the relaxation of the lockdown on the capital in July.

Government workers have been instructed to work from home where possible, and government institutions have been instructed provide services virtually where possible.

Maldives now has 4,293 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 129 new cases recorded this Monday. 2,670 patients have since recovered, while 18 have died from complications.

127 of the new cases this Monday were identified from the greater Male’ region – the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Maldives, while the remaining two were identified from the atolls.

The country now has 1,490 active cases. 92 of the coronavirus patients are hospitalized.