The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has covered a majority on the government’s Covid-19 expenditure in the social and health sectors, within a week.

Statistics publicized by the Ministry of Finance on the Covid-19 weekly expense on Monday revealed that the government’s expenditure towards the health and social sectors sat at MVR 1,307.2 billion by October 29.

This is a 0.8 percent increase from the previous week and in the review period, 46.1 percent of total health and social spending was committed-spending.

NDMA registered a majority of expenses in the Covid-19 response efforts in the health and social sectors, within this period in terms of week-on-week spending. As such the authority spent approximately MVR 7.5 million within the review period.

A majority of the spending was to fund operational services of Covid-19 health and social efforts, mostly on operational services, supplies and requisites, medical consumables, and allowances to employees.

In total, NDMA has contributed MVR 871.4 million in total, since the response efforts began. The authority spent MVR 362.8 million on supplies and requisites for service provision and MVR 112.2 million on operational services as well as 112.5 million for capital equipment. Further NDMA also spent 36 million in allocating allowances for employees.

Having contributed MVR 203.8 million in Covid-19 health and social efforts, the Ministry of Health comes second, having spent 82.3million for supplies and requisites for service provision, 78.2 million for capital equipment, 27.8 million for operational services as well as 6.6 million for repairs and maintenance.

Overall, Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) spent MVR 78 million by October 29, out of which 66.2 million was to acquire supplies and requisites for service provision, 4.3 million for capital equipment, 4.2 million for supplies and requisites as well as 2.8 million for operational services. IGMH also contributed MVR 500,000 for repairs and maintenance and 4.3 million for capital equipment.

MVR 24 million out of the MVR 41.4 million covered by the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) was for employee allowances, MVR 14.3 million was also spent on supplies and requisites. Maldives Police Service (MPS) spent MVR 23.8 million out of which MVR 20.5 million was for employee allowances and 1.5 million for supplies and requisites.

Further, the Ministry of Tourism spent a total of MVR 28.9 million from the ministry’s Tourism Activities Implementation Fund, out of which MVR 10.3 was for operational services, 7.3 million for supplies and requisites to provide services, 4.8 million for repairs and maintenance, 3.1 million for travel expenses as well as 1.6 million for capital equipment.

During the review period the National Social Protection Agency contributed MVR seven million for grants contributions and subsidies as well. The Ministry of Higher Education also spent 3.3 million for grants, contributions and subsidies.

The government spent a total of MVR 521.8 million in supplies and requisites to provide services, MVR 198.2 million in capital equipment as well as MVR 153.9 million for operational services.