Economic Minister Fayyaz Ismail has stated that records show over 281,000 expatriates are in the Maldives.
Henveiru Central MP Ali Azim has asked for the figures on the number of Bangladeshi workers and undocumented workers in the Maldives. Minister Fayyaz was summoned to the Parliament to shed light on the matter.
In his answer, Fayyaz said the most recent records show 281,000 foreign workers are in the Maldives, out of which 63,750 people are from Bangladesh. However, due to a flawed database system used by Maldives Immigration to keep records in the past, the available figures may not be accurate, the minister said.
The earlier system has records of 70,000 expatriates, but it does not have details on when they arrived in the Maldives, whether they are still in the country or if their deposits have been paid. Their passport numbers are not correctly recorded in the system, he added.
'Out of these 70,000 people, we have identified around 1000 people under our Regularization Program. Now we are aware that out of these 70,000 people, many people have already left the country. This happened as the Expat Online System was not linked to cancellations when these people departed from the country. However, efforts are now underway to resolve the issue,' Fayyaz said.
