Yameen says state debt makes Rasmale' unviable, calls for housing towers on Hulhumale' plots

Former President Abdullah Yameen Abdul Gayoom has urged the government to take back land in Hulhumale' that he claims was allocated illegally or improperly, and to build housing towers there instead of proceeding with the Rasmale' dredging project.

Speaking at a People’s National Front (PNF) rally on Sunday night, Yameen said the state’s current financial situation made it impossible to undertake large-scale projects such as Rasmale'. He said the government was already relying on T-bill sales to pay salaries and recurrent expenses, and that the country’s debt burden had reached a point where major development could not be financed.

Yameen said contractors would not provide financing for government projects because the state owed them around MVR 14 billion in unpaid dues. With no viable financing options left, he said the only remaining path would be to print money.

“So in this government, after paying salaries and recurrent expenses, where will they get the money to run a project? There is only one way, printing,” Yameen said.

He argued that the most urgent need for Maldivians was housing, and that it would be far cheaper and more practical to build towers in Hulhumale', where services and infrastructure already exist, rather than dredging Rasmale' and constructing costly tunnels.

Yameen said creating a new island and establishing basic services from scratch would be extremely expensive. He also accused the Rasmale' project of being a land-grabbing exercise, adding that there was no point in pursuing such a plan now that the land had already been reclaimed.

The opposition MDP has also voiced strong opposition to the Rasmale' dredging project, calling for the government to halt the plan instead of spending hundreds of millions of rufiyaa on it.