The Government is preparing to launch a US$100 million project to establish a proper waste management system in Male’ region, Finance Minister Ahmed Munawar said.
He made the announcement on Sunday at the opening ceremony of Environment Ministry’s “Saafu Raajje National Seminar”.
“Waste management remains a major challenge facing the country”, he said, “in order to address the problem in the Male’ region, the government would soon launch a US$100 million project with funding from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and World Bank”.
He added that the project would see the establishment of a proper waste management system in the region by 2018.
The Finance Ministry recently announced plans to allocate MVR370 million in next year’s budget for waste management projects to be conducted across the country.
Speaking at the opening of Saafu Raajje Seminar, Environment Minister Thoriq Ibrahim said the establishment of a proper waste management mechanism is a top priority of the government. He said that “under these efforts, the Government have sent 70 officials abroad for waste management-related trainings”.
The Environment Ministry said 256 from all the islands, councils, non-governmental organisations and government institutions are participating in the Saafu Raajje National Seminar.
It said that by the end of the 3-day seminar, they would have deliberated on issues facing individual islands in managing waste, and ways to solve these issues and implementation of regional waste management system.