The Planning Ministry has said the completion of the Police flats in Hulhumale' will not be completed within the deadline awarded to the contractor and would require an additional two months.
The Planning Ministry said this in response to questions raised by members of the Parliament's State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Committee on Tuesday.
The completion of the POlice flats was awarded to Amin Construction on December 30, 2021, to Amin Construction. The contractor was given until September 20 this year to complete the work.
The Police and MNDF flats have been in construction for almost ten years. The flat recipients and families have been complaining to the relevant authorities for years over the massive delay in completing the flats.
Speaking at the committee, Planning Ministry's State Minister Akram Kamaluddin said the work was not delayed due to the contractor's fault but because a previous contractor, Island Expert, had subcontracted some work to a third party. The subcontractor was paid to install the network and cameras, but the work still remains incomplete, he said.
When asked whether the work of the police flats would continue without interruption, Akram said it was not expected that the work would be delayed due to further problems. However, Planning Minister Mohamed Aslam did not give any assurance that the work would continue.
The construction of MNDF and Police flats was first awarded to Noomadi Construction in 2013 during the administration of former President Mohamed Waheed. However, the agreement with Noomadi was terminated on January 27, 2016, by the former President Abdulla Yameen's government, stating that the company was not abiding by the contract. The work was then awarded to Island Expert. However, Island Expert went bankrupt and abandoned the project in 2020 due to the economic losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
When Island Expert abandoned the project, the company had completed 80 percent of the work on one of the three MNDF towers, 50 percent of the work on the remaining towers, and 87 percent of the work on the three Police towers.
While MVR 548 million has been spent on the MNDF towers, over MVR 500 million has been spent on the Police towers. The MNDF towers are being completed by China's "The Twenty-Third Metallurgical Construction Group". Planning Ministry officials said they were not aware of the details of the MNDF flats as they were not related to the ministry.
