The total spending towards Covid-19 response efforts in the health sector has surpassed MVR 900 million.

The Ministry of Finance made the reveal through its “Weekly Covid-19 Spending Report” publicized on Tuesday for the sixth week.

The total expenditure towards Covid-19 health efforts has risen to MVR 923.2 million.

As such, the report states that this is an increase of 3.5% in comparison to the fifth week which recorded an expenditure of MVR 892.3 million in Covid-19 response efforts.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) remains the major contributor towards the response efforts in terms of week-on-week expenditure, having spent approximately MVR 30 million from February 11 to June 4, primarily on operational services, medical consumables, and requisites necessary for Covid-19 operations.

Further, it notes increased spending on consumables and construction of coronavirus related facilities by Ministry of Health and Ministry of National Planning and Infrastructure, respectively.

As of June 4, 56.7% of the total spending was committed spending.

NDMA spent a total of MVR 696.1 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 362.5 million. The authority also spent 111.5 million on capital equipment, 17.5 million in grants, contributions and subsidies as well as 30.7 million for land and buildings as well as 45.9 million on supplies and requisites.

Second comes the health ministry, which spent MVR 142.6 million out of which 74.7 million was spent on procuring supplies and requisites for service provision, 63 million on capital equipment and 1.3 million on operational services. Further, the ministry spent 1.5 million on repairs and maintenance, 1.2 million for supplies and requisites as well as MVR 900,000 for travel expenses.

The Ministry of National Planning and Infrastructure’s expenses for week six sits at 29.1 million, having spent 28.7 million for land and buildings with the remaining, MVR 300,000 was spent on supplies and requisites.

MVR seven million out of the total of MVR 8.5 million spent by the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) was for supplies and requisites while MVR 1.1 million was spent on repairs and maintenance and MVR 400,000 was spent on procuring capital equipment.

Up until May 28, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent a total of MVR 6.8 million in committed spending out of which 3.8 million was extracted from their domestic budget and three million from the Zakat fund for grants, contributions and subsidies.

The state had spent a total of MVR 450.3 million in supplies and requisites for service provision, 113.2 million in grants, contributions and subsidies, 177.3 million in capital equipment and 59.4 million in land and buildings by June 4.

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.

Under the schemes outlined in the government’s Economic Relief Package (ERP), a total of MVR 302 million was disbursed up until June 7.

MVR 300 million has been disbursed to partnered banks in order to implement the Covid-19 recovery loan scheme, said the ministry.

In addition, a total of MVR 1.5 million has been disbursed to 364 individuals and households.

A number of utilities companies have also been providing discounts on water and electricity bills. As such, the total value of discounts on water bills is at MVR 10.2 million for a total of 46,417 households.

The State Electric Company, STELCO provided a MVR 100,000 discount to 558 households, FENAKA Corporation provided MVR 300,000 to 12,661 households and the Maldives Water and Sewerage Company (MWSC) provided MVR 9.8 million to a total of 33,198 households.

Further, the value for discounts on electricity bills stands at MVR 49.7 million for 92,588 households.

As such, STELCO provided a total of 27.4 million in discount for 45,068 households with FENAKA coming second having offered a 22 million discount to 46,839 households and MWSC having provided MVR 300,000 in discount for 681 households.

In addition, under the Covid-19 recovery loan scheme, the Bank of Maldives disbursed MVR 206.5 million to a total of 183 individuals and SME Development Finance Corporation (SDFC) disbursed MVR 48.1 million for a total of 465 individuals under the loan scheme.