Not acceptable to waste assets set for Aasandha: Ameer

Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer said it was unacceptable to waste the funds allocated to the Aasandha insurance system.

In answering questions from the parliamentary committee examining the proposed state budget for 2022, Minister Ameer said the government had decided to reduce the budget allocated to Aasandha in order to reduce waste of resources. He further stated that the budget has not been cut to reduce the services Aasandha provides.

“It is a great injustice to allow funds collected from citizens as tax and non-taxable to go to Aasandha, which has often been leaked due to the way the mechanism is set up. It is irresponsible to do so do, “he said.

Referring to a survey conducted by the World Bank, Ameer said the Maldives sell drugs at the highest price in the region. According to the survey, drug prices in the Maldives are 75.9 percent above those in these regions.

Over 730 million MVR will be saved from the state budget next year as the Maldives is currently working on drug price control. To date, over 1 billion MVR has been spent on Aasandha every year.

The drug price is controlled in two phases; In the first phase, the prices of 357 drugs will be controlled, while the drugs for non-essential drugs will be determined in the second phase of this operation, which is expected to come into effect in the middle of next year.