Total expenditure by the government on the COVID19 response effort has reached MVR 666.2 million.

According to the “Weekly Covid-19 Spending Report” publicized by the Ministry of Finance on April 30, the majority of expenses came from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Ministry of Health, both contributing to 78.6% of the total amount.

Finance Ministry revealed that most of the expenses were to procure medical consumables and equipment, as well as to provide government grants.

NDMA spent a total of MVR 472.2 million from their domestic budget out of which most of the amount was spent on procuring supplies and requisites for service provision, which was at MVR 292.2 million. The authority also spent 39.2 million on capital equipment, 17.6 million in grants, contributions and subsidies as well as 17.4 million for land and buildings. 10.8 million was spent on supplies and requisites.

The Health Ministry spent a total of MVR 135.7 million out of which 69.2 million was spent on procuring supplies and requisites for service provision, 62.3 million on capital equipment and 1.2 million on operational services. Further, the ministry has spent one million on repairs and maintenance, 1.1 million for supplies and requisites as well as 0.8 million for travel expenses.

The Ministry of National Planning and Infrastructure comes in third with a total of MVR 27.9 million in committed spending out of which 27.8 million was spent for land and buildings with the remaining being spent on supplies and requisites.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent a total of MVR 6.4 million in committed spending out of which 3.4 million was extracted from their domestic budget and three million from the Zakat fund for grants, contributions and subsidies.

MVR 3.9 million out of the total of MVR 4.6 million spent by the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) was for repairs and maintenance while the remaining MVR 0.7 million was spent for supplies and requisites.

Up until April 28, the Ministry of Tourism had spent a total of MVR 16.3 million for Covid-19 related efforts out of which MVR 15.4 was for operational services, 0.8 million for travel expenses and the remaining for repairs and maintenance. These funds were extracted from their Tourism Activities Implementation Fund.

Other details include that the state had spent a total of MVR 361.7 million in supplies and requisites for service provision, 110.8 million in grants, contributions and subsidies, 101.5 million in capital equipment and 45.3 million in land and buildings by April 28.

The weekly publication pertains to the “committed spendings” on Covid-19 related efforts and is publicized every Monday with the data cut-off date as the Thursday of the following week.