Poor People Denied Flats Not Because of Shortage: Commoner’s Friendship Association

The Hiyaa flats that had been assigned by the Yameen administration were taken away from poor people not because of any shortage of flats, say the Commoner's Friendship Association.

The Association responded to a government press conference the previous day during which the government had claimed that poor people, who live in squalor, had had their flat assignments canceled because of a shortage of Hiyaa flats. The Association claimed that poor people were denied because the flats had been given out to the élites and their families.

The Association, in a statement published on Twitter, stated that 3,700 poor people had had their flat assignments canceled “because the flats had to be re-assigned to some other people”.

The Association pointed out that while the government claims a shortage today, the 7,000 Hiyaa housing units had been properly allocated to several poor families without a problem. The Association raised the question if the flats had been taken away from the people to whom they had been assigned, and given to “whomever else the government wanted to give them to”.

The statement mentioned that while the government blamed the previous administration for “stealing” the flats: the Solih administration has not been able to explain why poor people had their homes taken away from them.

The Solih administration had revised the flat allocations through a Flat Committee established to root out “corruption” in the previous administration’s allocation. Several individuals, such as President Solih’s sister, pro-government social media activist Ali Zaid, and family members of Supreme Court Judge Ali Rasheed, have received flats under the new revisions.