Govt. set to spend MVR 57 million on 151 ventilators

The Maldivian government has announced that MVR 56.7 million will be spent on sourcing 151 ventilators to treat positive cases of Covid-19 in the Maldives.

The country currently has 97 ventilators in hospitals and the government is working to establish a system of 200 ventilators.

In a news conference last night, government spokesperson Mabrouq Azeez said that 151 ventilators will be sourced through the WHO and three private companies. One of these companies would source six portable ventilators while another company would source 50 ICU ventilators. The third company is set to source 20 ventilators while the WHO would provide 75 ventilators.

The portable ventilators would cost the government around MVR 1.3 million four of these will be used to treat Covid-19 patients while the remaining two would be used in hospitals.

The government had not made any payments to the two companies that will be sourcing 70 ventilators in total. The 50 ventilators sourced through one company will cost the government MVR 14.4 million while the 20 ventilators by the second company will cost MVR 7.03 million.

WHO will provide 65 ICU ventilators and q10 portable ventilators which will cost around MVR 34 million. The government had already paid an advance payment of 75 percent of the total.

While some allegations of corruption have been circulated around the sourcing of ventilators, Mabrouq said that the government would not hide any information and that it would be easy to say that there was no act of corruption before requesting any such complaints to be filed with the Anti-Corruption Commission and the Whistleblower portal.