Govt Payments to Contractors Delayed

Contractors have expressed their concerns due to the delays in payments for their work done on projects run by government institutions and state-owned companies.

A statement released from the Contractors' Association yesterday read that they had received many complaints that payments for invoiced work on government projects incur "extreme" delays. The Association called upon the government to give special attention to these delays.

The Contractors' Association said that many Maldivian businesses had been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. They said that contractors, who were generally directly linked to many small-to-medium enterprises; if wages owed to contractors were severely delayed, other businesses would be affected as well.

Even though complaints about delayed payments have become common, companies owned by individuals close to the government have been reported to receive payments without delay.