Land allocated under the administration’s ‘Binveriya’ housing scheme will be handed over before 5 November, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has said while campaigning for the second-round runoff of the presidential elections.
Solih said that, while the previous administrations had promised to provide housing to the people of Malé, none had done so for the past 40 years until his administration. His administration will hand over the allocated land before the end of his term, the second term hopeful said. If voted in for a second term, he will bring in a housing bank to provide financial assistance to build on the allocated land, he said. His administration had found solutions for those who had suffered huge losses when allocated housing by the previous administration, Solih said. The flats allocated during the first MDP administration were confiscated during the last government when Mohamed Muizzu was Housing Minister, the incumbent said of his main presidential challenger.
A total of 23,088 people applied for housing under the Binveriya scheme, out of which, 18,955 qualified and 9,003 plots were to be allocated. Land allocations will be in three sizes with the minimum plot size for an individual at 1,250 square feet, with 400 square feet added for each additional person in case of joint applications. If the application is by more than seven, a total of 4,000 square feet will be allocated.
While the current administration has ramped up housing allocations as the nation had headed into the presidential elections this year, past administrations had also implemented housing solutions that, eventually, were seen as less than adequate for a city in dire need of extended, long-term strategies, to address housing inadequacies that have been escalating for the past 40 years. Solutions by the current administration also remain unproven at this time.
