Malé, Maldives – President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has announced that government would give discounts in water and electricity bills for next month to all households and businesses of Maldives.
Speaking on a press conference held last night, President Solih told that households would receive 30 percent discount in water bills and 40 percent discount from electricity bills.
In addition to this, businesses would be given 20 percent discount from both water and electricity bills for the month. President Solih also added that government would be giving out relief loans this year as well and that cafés and restaurants would also be eligible to it in addition to other small businesses.
President Solih had also announced that government would provide economic recovery loans through Bank of Maldives (BML) same as last year.
This comes while speaking on the press conference held last night, President Solih told that he did not believe that the government had failed in managing the pandemic and that sufficient works were being done to control the virus.
He also added that he believes that the easements given by the government towards the local council elections was a reason for the uncontrolled spread of the virus within the past 30 days but that he did not want to go in to blaming who’s fault it was.
Presidents remarks on the matter comes while 71 people have passed away this month alone due to to Covid-19 and daily cases have been above 1,000 for the past seven days with a total of 28,600 cases recorded in May month alone.
Health Protection Agency (HPA) had recorded a total of 1,004 Covid-19 cases today. In the statistics released by HPA, it was detailed that out of the 1,004 cases, 835 were from the Malé area, while 135 cases were recorded from inhabited islands. The figures also included 12 case from operational resorts and 04 from liveaboards which brought up the total active cases in the country to 24,033.
With this, the total number of Covid-19 cases recorded in the country has reached 58,345 out of which 34,159 patients have made full recoveries, as of 18:00 of May 25, 2021.
While the country is currently going through one of the worst waves that has hit the country in terms of the pandemic, currently there are 289 patients receiving hospitalized care for the virus throughout the country. With majority of the hospitalized patients being in the capital, experts continuously reiterate the importance of taking preventive steps against Covid-19, such as maintaining adequate physical distancing, wearing masks and practicing hand hygiene.
Maldives has recorded 144 Covid-19 related deaths since the pandemic began.
