Govt. recovers MVR 1.6B in unpaid expatriate fees

State Minister for Homeland Security Abdul Majeedh states the government has successfully collected MVR 1.6 billion from MVR 1.7 billion in unpaid expatriate fees, noting a 32 percent increase in the payment of fees related to expatriate workers.

Speaking during PSM’s ‘Raajje Miadhu’ program on Tuesday night, State Minister Majeedh said the state was owed MVR 1.7 billion in expatriate fees when the current administration assumed office, adding only 22.72 percent had been regularly paying the fees back then.

As part of efforts to recover the money, the government publicized a list of names of over 1,000 people who were not regularly paying the fees. Additionally, the government granted those with significant outstanding amounts a one-year period to settle their payments.

Majeedh said the number of people regularly paying expatriate fees has increased by 32 percent since the current administration assumed office. As such, 55.4 percent of the people currently regularly pay the fees.

Majeedh, citing MVR 1.6 billion from MVR 1.7 billion in unpaid expatriate fees have been recovered, described this achievement as a huge feat.

“99 percent of the recovered amount was recovered by the current administration, meaning we, the current administration recovered MVR 1.6 billion. However, there is still some MVR 900 million in unpaid fees owed to the state,’ he detailed.

While the current administration targets to resolve the issue of undocumented expatriates in the Maldives within three years – Home Ministry is also conducting an operation under the name ‘Kurangi’ through which the biometric data of migrants in the Maldives are being collected to formulate a registry.

Speaking during Tuesday night’s program, Majeedh said the biometric data of over 100,000 migrants have been collected within 10 months. This accounts for half of the documented expatriates, he added.

As per Majeedh, the second phase of Kurangi will see the regularization of undocumented expatriates.