The Parliament Petitions Committee has decided to hold a public forum before deciding on a petition calling on the legislative body to prevent any potential annulment of awarding of flats and to uphold the list gazetted by the previous administration for the ‘Gedhoruveriya‘ social housing scheme.
The committee decided to hold a public forum, with the participation of those who have expressed concern over the delay in the allocation of flats, after Member of Parliament (MP) for Ungoofaaru, Mohamed Waheed, of the Democrats, proposed a motion endorsing the move.
The motion, seconded by MP for Funadhoo, Mohamed Shahid, of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), was passed unanimously by the members present at Tuesday’s sitting of the committee.
The committee decided that petitioners, as well as civil society organisations, will be given the opportunity to participate in the public forum, going on to schedule the forum for 27 February.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) announced at a press conference on 5 February, that a large percentage of applicants on the list announced by the previous administration were ineligible and that only 20.70 percent of the forms included in the official list for housing fully met the requirements. Around 19.70 percent of applications were not sufficiently complete, the anti-corruption watchdog found.
Although requirements may have been met, 70 percent of forms contained discrepancies in information provided, and there were issues with the awarding of points with some forms, such as those with special needs and other problematic submissions, having been awarded points outside of the scheme’s documented parameters, the ACC noted.
While the Solih administration had originally contracted to build 4,000 flats for the Gedhoruveriya scheme, the provisional list of eligible applicants released on 8 August had 15,046 applicants — the administration then decided to award flats to all 15,046 eligible applicants.
The first 4,000 flats will be given to the highest scorers in points order.
After gaining access to the scheme’s portal on 1 February, the commission authorised the Mohamed Muizzu administration to resume work on issuing the housing units and related documentation.
