President Mohamed Muizzu’s ambitious proposal to connect Malé with the under-development Ras Malé city via an underwater tunnel may have hit a technological wall, as the Ministry of Construction and Infrastructure admitted that current engineering capabilities are not yet advanced enough to realise such a project.
Construction Minister Abdulla Muththalib acknowledged Monday that global technology has yet to catch up with the vision required for a tunnel spanning around 20-kilometre channel between Malé and Ras Malé. President Muizzu first announced the project on 22 January, promising a unique underwater journey where travellers could view marine life along the way.
Experts immediately raised questions regarding the feasibility of such a tunnel, noting the challenges of constructing at significant depths and in open-sea conditions. “It would cost several multiples of the country’s GDP,” remarked one engineer, citing the massive financial and technical hurdles involved in creating an underwater structure of this scale.
In response to these doubts, Muththalib defended the President’s bold vision by drawing a comparison to U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s famous mission to land a man on the moon, a project that initially seemed unachievable. “This is a whole new venture,” he stated, emphasising that both financial and technical feasibility studies remain pending. “It’s not a project we can place on a timeline; it’s extraordinary in scale.”
The Ras Malé development project itself, inaugurated last December, also faces scrutiny. Originally set to reclaim 1,153 hectares within an eight-month timeline, nearly a year later, only 8 hectares have been completed – less than one per cent of the original target. This slow progress has prompted further doubts about the viability of the tunnel project, as the reclamation delays have already exceeded expectations.