The Parliament has approved the 56.6 billion rufiyaa budget proposed by the government for the coming year. The bill proposed by the government for the coming year was passed by the Parliament today after an amendment. Member for Manadoo Constituency, Husni Mubarak, proposed an amendment to the report passed by the Budget Committee, stating to remove the ninth point of the report, which includes general recommendations for the 2025 budget.
The proposal was seconded by Member for Vilimale’ Constituency, Mohamed Ismail. The amendment was passed with 68 votes. 11 members voted against it. The budget was passed today with the amendment with 70 votes in favor. 11 members voted against it. The government calls this the “Housing Budget” as it gives high priority to housing.
Presenting the budget to the Parliament session, Finance Minister Moosa Zameer said that the expenditure for the coming year will be 49.2 billion rufiyaa. This includes 35.9 billion rufiyaa as recurrent expenditure and 13.3 billion rufiyaa as capital expenditure.
In addition to these expenses, the Minister said the budget mainly includes 3.9 billion rufiyaa needed for debt repayment, 378 million rufiyaa for capital injection to state-owned enterprises and other investments, and 3.2 billion rufiyaa allocated for government loans.
The Minister said that while 1 billion rufiyaa is included in the budget for housing loans at 5% interest, this money will pave the way for banks in the Maldives to provide up to 2 billion rufiyaa in housing loans. Additionally, 1.8 billion rufiyaa has been allocated for new PSIP projects for housing. “Therefore, the budget proposed for approval for 2025 is the largest expenditure proposed by a government in the history of the Maldives for housing in a single year,” said Zameer.
The budget proposed for the coming year is 1.6 billion rufiyaa more than this year’s budget. With the supplementary budget proposed this year, the total budget has reached 55 billion.
