The government is developing a scheme to help people cover the 5 percent equity contribution banks require when lending for home construction, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu has said.
He was responding to a caller on the tenth episode of his Rayyithunge Adu programme, who said they had been allocated a plot in Hulhumalé Phase 2 but had not been able to start building because they could not meet the conditions set by banks.
The president said the money for the scheme had already been set aside in the Housing Trust Fund, and that the assistance would be a grant that does not have to be repaid rather than a loan.
"This is not a loan. It is something given for the equity component that does not have to be repaid," he said.
People who have been allocated plots would be able to pool the assistance, he said, so that groups building together could cover a larger share of the equity required.
Priority would go to people who have not been given a flat under the social housing programme and who have no housing of their own. The government was working to make the terms easier, the president said.
The scheme is being finalised before it opens to the public. Preparations are also under way for the government's main housing scheme.
Muizzu first said in June that the Housing Trust Fund would be expanded to provide equity financing.
Plots under the previous government's Binveriya scheme were handed to their owners in October 2024. A total of 18,955 people qualified and 9,003 plots were issued, in Hulhumalé, Gulhifalhu and Giraavaru. Many of them remain unused.