President: Issuing loans will produce better results than gov-built housing

President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu said on Tuesday that providing people with loans to construct homes will produce better results than providing them with housing or flats built by the government.

During his 2023 presidential campaign, President Muizzu pledged to introduce home construction loans at a low interest rate – one of the key pledges he made to tackle Maldives’ growing housing crisis.

This pledge materialized in the form of the ‘Hiyaavahi’ finance scheme launched on Tuesday morning – a scheme that offers home construction loans at 5 percent interest rate.

Addressing the launch event, President Muizzu described the ‘Hiyaavahi’ scheme as the most important component of his administration’s efforts to resolve the housing crisis.

“The fact is, this scheme will produce better results than if the government builds and issues housing. This will help more people,” he said.

President Muizzu said that as promised, his administration is also working on launching a scheme where state-owned enterprises can support the construction of homes on the plots awarded from the Greater Male’ Area.

“…and as I promised, I am also working on introducing a scheme people can get support to build homes of plots they have in Male’ area,” he said.

President Muizzu said that the administration is currently working on the technical aspects of the planned scheme.

According to him, the ‘Hiyaavahi’ scheme launched on Tuesday will see up to MVR 2 billion in home construction loans issued each year.

“This loan scheme will, In Sha Allah, facilitate this for thousands of citizens,” he said.

President Muizzu said he hopes that by the end of his term, there isn’t a single Maldivian citizen who lacks housing.