After the investigation of the complaints regarding the sale of 400 land plots from Hulhumale’ Phase 2, Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) has given recommendation to the Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure on how the process of the sale of the land plots should proceed.
Upon looking into the issue, the commission observed that these 400 land plots fall under “state dwellings for Residence” according to the interpretation of “state dwellings for Residence” in the amendment on Article 44 (a) of the Act no. 4/2008 (Act on the 6th amendment of Maldivian Land Act (Act no. 1/2002)) and should be allocated according to the policies of allocating state dwellings for residential purposes.
Under Article 13 of the Regulation on the allocation of state land for residential purposes, state dwellings for Residence must be allocated after publicly announcing. Also the conditions of this announcement is mentioned in this article. Moreover, under Article 3 of the first amendment of The regulation on the allocation of state land for residential purposes (Regulation no. 2018/R-51), the Article 15 of Regulation on the allocation of state land for residential purposes is amended and the conditions to look for while allocating such land is mentioned.
President’s office informed Housing Development Corporation (HDC) by a letter that the president has decided to use the unallocated lands from the lands reserved for industrial works from Hulhumale’ phase 2 for Housing projects. A letter from the president’s office to Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure states that the purpose of selling these lands is to resolve HDC’s cash flow problems, hence on 3rd October 2018, Economic and Youth Council has decided to sell 400 land plots from Hulhumale’ for a price of MVR 300/- to 400/- per square feet to the citizens of Male’ who are most in need of a housing. It was also decided to sell another 100 land from the beach front in an auction with a starting price of MVR2000/- per square feet for medium and high-end. Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure has the discretion to make the policy on to whom these lands will be sold. A letter informing this was sent by the President’s Office to HDC approving the sale of land plots from Hulhumale’ phase 2.
Ministry of housing and infrastructure can go forward with the process of selling the 400 land plots from Hulhumale’ phase 2 only if the board of directors has passed a resolution appointing Housing Ministry for issuing these land plots. Hence, a letter was sent by HDC to Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure stating that they have decided to sell 400 land plots within Hulhumale’ for social housing for a price of MVR300/- to MVR400/- per square feet to the citizens of Male’ who are most in need of a housing and that the allocation of these lands will be executed by a fair and equal policy made by the Ministry.
Based on the aforementioned points, it is known that the Economic and Youth Council has decided and HDC and President’s Office has requested Ministry of Housing and infrastructure to allocate 400 land plots for social housing from within Hulhumale’ to the citizens of Male’ who are most in need of a housing.
Hence, ACC urged the Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure to make a policy that can be used to identify citizens of Male’ who are most in need of a housing as requested by the President’s Office, to publicly announce this policy as per the Regulation on the allocation of state land for residential purposes, to publicly announce the allocation of these lands beforehand, to give sufficient time to submit the application and to proceed with the allocation of land plots after evaluating the application forms.