Meeting the needs of the people has always been the foundation of a republic, says President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

President Solih took the podium at the official reception held at the Republic Square to mark the 54th Republic Day of the Maldives, on Wednesday, where he stated that Republicanism is a basic asset of a people’s government.

He added that ensuring equality in rendering public services is social justice.

The president stated that during the past three years, his administration made efforts to ensure equality and impartiality in rendering public services to the people. As such, over the past three years the administration of President Solih had highly prioritized the people’s needs and decentralization.

Shedding light on the prioritization of human resource development, President Solih said that the government has worked resiliently to develop the education sector.

As such, the A’Level studies were extended to all atolls in the past three years, as well as the introduction of the free first degree programme. Further, the construction of 1,000 additional classrooms across the nation, to facilitate schools to adopt single session schooling were also initiated during the past three years.

Shedding light on the efforts towards regional development, the president noted that the government aims to complete all water and sewerage projects initiated by his administration within the next two years with the aim to ensure basic necessities are provided to all inhabited islands.

Ongoing progress of several major developmental projects were also detailed by the president during the reception.

Within the remaining two years of his tenure, the president will focus on implementing all government policies, he said.

He further noted that the proposed budget for the upcoming year was formulated towards achieving this goal.

With an aim to ease housing difficulties faced in the atolls, the government will initiate housing projects worth MVR 1.5 billion as well.

The Republic Day reception was joined by First lady Fazna Ahmed, Vice President Faisal Naseem and spouse Aishath Shamsada as well as senior government officials, parliamentarians and senior officials from state institutions.