‘Gedhoruveriya’ flats' rent raised by MVR 2,000

The government has announced the decision to increase the rent on flats built under the ‘Gedhoruveriya’ housing scheme by MVR 2,000.

The release of the new list of recipients of the first 4,000 flats built under the ‘Gedhoruveriya’ scheme was announced by Housing Minister Dr. Abdulla Muthalib in a press briefing on Thursday afternoon.

Muthalib told reporters that the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) administration – which launched the project – had decided on a monthly rent of MVR 5,000 for two-bedroom flats and MVR 7,000 for three-bedroom flats.

“The money the state is required to pay for the loan was not taken into consideration and nor was any assessments done before deciding on these numbers. And nor were these numbers based on rents for other housing projects,” he said.

He pointed out that the MDP administration had set the rent for the two-bedroom Hiyaa flats at MVR 7,000.

Muthalib does not believe the rent set by the former administration for the ‘Gedhoruveriya’ flats to be realistic or fair.

“Based on the statistics of the FDC [Fahi Dhiriulhun Corporation], in order to repay the loan – meaning that in order to cover 85 percent of the loan taken from Exim Bank – in order for the government to get the money we need to repay the loan – we need to charge MVR 13,000 as monthly rent from three-bedroom flats and MVR 9,000 from two-bedroom flats,” he said.

Muthalib said that despite these calculations, the government decided to subsidize the rent on the flats.

He said that the government decided to charge a monthly rent of MVR 7,000 on two-bedroom flats and a monthly rent of MVR 9,000 on three-bedroom flats – marking a MVR 2,000 increase from the originally planned rates.

Meanwhile, the recipients of two-bedroom flats will be required to pay a security deposit of MVR 15,000 and a monthly maintenance fee of MVR 1,000, and the recipients of three-bedroom flats will be required to pay a security deposit of MVR 25,000 and a monthly maintenance fee of MVR 1,500.

The MDP administration had previously announced it would charge a blanket maintenance fee of MVR 1,000 on both two-bedroom and two-bedroom flats.