Sunday
28th Apr 2024
Dhivehi Edition
President Solih and Ahmed Saeed, the MD of Fenaka. Photo: President's Office.
Fenaka Corporation Limited, a state owned enterprise founded to supply electricity, water and sewerage services to the people living in islands has decided to withhold overtime pay from its employees due to financial distress.
While Fenaka remains at the peak of corruption scandals, out of all the SOEs, it also has the most in payables owed to private owned companies.
According to internal documents of Fenaka acquired by TMJ, the company owed MVR 1.4 billion by the end of 2021. Fenaka is one of the most indebted SOEs of the Maldives.
Fenaka debt had been MVR 627 million when President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came into office and the last four years has added over MVR 800 million to its debt.
Fenaka saw the most debt acquisition last year, where at the beginning of the year Fenaka had a debt of MVR 1.076 billion and by the end of the year it had risen to MVR 1.417 billion. This was an increase of MVR 400 million in 2021. The majority of the finances owed by Fenaka are payables to privately owned enterprises.
Due to extreme expenditure and pressure to settle its accounts, Fenaka MD Ahmed Mohamed issued a companywide circular urging his employees to complete their work between the hours of 8:00 and 15:00, starting 4th December.
The circular read that employees, departments and branches will require a special permit to work outside of the business hours.
The Privatization and Corporatization Board (PCB) highlighted in its latest report of SOE operations that Fenaka spends most of its resources on the employees.
Detractors of the government allege that Fenaka creates a range of politically inclined vacancies as elections draw near.