The Cabinet, in its meeting today, decided to establish a Holding Company and to bring all government owned companies under it. The decision was made after discussing a paper submitted by the Ministry of Finance and Treasury on the matter.
The proposed holding company will be established as a limited liability company, in accordance with the Companies Act.
The company will be run in accordance with international best practice.
State-owned companies in the Maldives were initially created to provide basic services to the people. However, in line with government’s policies, several companies were corporatized. Therefore, the Cabinet resolved that the next step would be to privatise those companies.
Currently there are 46 state-owned companies, out of which 33 are hundred percent government owned companies.
Also, at today’s meeting, the Cabinet tasked the Ministry of Housing and Environment to carry out a project to design and manage a national electric grid.
The government believes electricity can be provided at cheaper rates and greater economies of scale can be achieved, by networking islands via cable instead of placing generators in every single island.
