The government’s total expenditure on the Covid-19 response effort has reached MVR 814.2 million.

According to the “Weekly Covid-19 Spending Report” publicized by the Ministry of Finance as of May 7, the majority of expenses came from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Ministry of Health, both contributing to 91.5% of the total amount.

Finance Ministry revealed that the week-on-week increment of MVR 148.8 million is primarily linked to the increased spending by NDMA on medical equipment and the national medical emergency stockpile.

NDMA spent a total of MVR 609.5 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 312.9 million. The authority also spent 124.8 million on capital equipment, 17.5 million in grants, contributions and subsidies as well as 26.7 million for land and buildings. 18.7 million was spent on supplies and requisites.

The Health Ministry's spending remained unchanged within the two weeks. As such, the 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.

Coming in at third, the Ministry of National Planning and Infrastructure spent a total of 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.

Up until May 7, the Ministry of Tourism had spent a total of 24.7 million for Covid-19 related efforts out of which 15.8 million was for operational services, 1.6 million for travel expenses and the remaining 7.3 million was spent on supplies and requisites for service provision. These funds were extracted from their Tourism Activities Implementation Fund.

Further, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent a total of MVR 6.5 million in committed spending out of which 3.5 million was extracted from their domestic budget and three million from the Zakat fund for grants, contributions and subsidies.

MVR 0.8 million out of the total of MVR six million spent by the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) was for repairs and maintenance while the majority, MVR 4.9 million was spent for supplies and requisites.

Other details include that the state had spent a total of MVR 389.7 million in supplies and requisites for service provision, 110.9 million in grants, contributions and subsidies, 187.6 million in capital equipment and 54.5 million in land and buildings by May 7.

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