Education Minister Dr Ismail Shafeeu has revealed that key school projects have not commenced due to a lack of sufficient funds,
At Monday’s Parliament sitting, the Minister was asked by Keyodhoo MP Mohamed Niushadh why the four-storey building and school fence project at Keyodhoo School had not commenced, despite being included in last year’s budget.
In his response, Minister Shafeeu said the Keyodhoo School project was included both in the 2024 and 2023 budgets but neither budget included sufficient funds to start the project.
The minister explained that the budget allocated for the project in 2023 was MVR 1.5 million and last year MVR 2.01 million. While the project costs more than MVR 20 million in total, the 15 percent advance payment due to the contractor to begin the project was not included in either budget, he noted.
"We decided not to launch projects in name only, while a large number of projects are already underway. We did not start any project last year that did not include the 15 percent contractor payment in the budget," Shafeeu said.