State utilities company FENAKA Corporation has sent a 400 kilowatt diesel-powered electricity generator to Hulhudhuffaaru island in northern Raa Atoll. 

A FENAKA official said that the new genset was dispatched to the island, replacing an older 250 kilowatt generator at Hulhudhuffaaru’s engine house. 

The corporation’s staff on the island began work on installing the generator on Sunday, and FENAKA says it will be fully functional within a period of 24 hours. 

The FENAKA Corporation is headed by directors appointed from the President’s Office, and is under new management after President Ibrahim Solih’s election in November last year. 

The company was accused of mismanagement and misuse of funds during former president Abdulla Yameen’s tenure, with audits revealing a ‘foreign exchange scam’ that cost millions to the state. 

In 2018, the statutory Anti-Corruption Commission said that FENAKA’s managers could not reveal how the company paid MVR 1.3 million for trips taken by them. 

While FENAKA is responsible for providing 24-hour access to power to island across the Maldives, several smaller islands often report day-long outages. Failure to provide a quick solution to said outages, despite having offices in every atoll, have in the past resulted in public demonstration.