Abdul Matheen Mohamed, Managing Director of Male’ Water and Sewerage Company (MWSC), has said that relevant institutions and citizens need to jointly determine how to sustainably provide electricity, water and sewerage services in the Maldives. Matheen said the government and citizens need to think together towards ending reliance on subsidies.
Basic services like water, sewerage and electricity in the Maldives are provided by state-owned companies. Therefore, service provision relies heavily on subsidies. However, experts in the field say this is not a sustainable model for providing services. Speaking on PSM News’ Raajje Miadu program, MWSC Managing Director Abdul Matheen Mohamed said water services will be connected to households in all islands of the Maldives by the end of this year. He said we need to think about a model to provide this service to citizens at that point. Matheen said utility services can be provided sustainably only if companies can find a way to recover the costs involved.
“We need to ensure services are affordable. We need to ensure services are available to all citizens. Similarly, how can we arrange to cover the financial costs sustainably? There is no tariff for sewerage at all. Looking at water systems, many systems established in the Maldives don’t have that level of consumption. So the water service cannot cover its costs,” Matheen said. Matheen said among utility services provided in the Maldives, only electricity generates revenue. However, even electricity service is provided at a loss in many islands. Therefore, Matheen said discussions need to be held between citizens, relevant government agencies and stakeholders to determine how to proceed once utility services are established in all islands of the Maldives. The state budget spends a large amount on subsidies to provide basic utility services in the Maldives.
Over 1 billion rufiyaa is spent annually on fuel for electricity generation. In addition, a large amount is spent on electricity subsidies. Therefore, a system needs to be established to sustainably provide utility services and generate funds needed for maintenance. Otherwise, with the growing population, relying on subsidies and increasing expenses is not a financially sustainable burden for the state.
