Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation Mohamed Ameen announced on Wednesday that over 69,000 vehicles had been registered in the Maldives in the past five years.
In the first press briefing held by the ministry in the current administration, Minister Ameen said that 69,780 vehicles had been registered in the Maldives in the past five years, with over 42,000 of them registered in Malé. He emphasized that this was an extraordinarily high number.
"Therefore, as you know, if we continue at this scale with this trend, we will not be able to contain it within the Malé area," Minister Ameen said.
He said that if vehicle registration had been done in accordance with the law, the aforementioned number of vehicles would not have been registered. Ameen suggested that, even without changing the law, they could address this issue by slowing down registrations in certain instances.
The Minister said that technical work is being undertaken in collaboration with various institutions to reduce the number of vehicles. He also stated that he would sign with a company to work towards resolving the traffic problem in the Malé area.
"Then, with my recommendations, I believe that by presenting it to the Cabinet and implementing necessary changes in the law, we can start working on a long-term but overall beneficial solution," he said.
He added that he had also requested Foreign Minister Moosa Zameer to bring in experts from a country like Singapore or Dubai, where traffic problems have been successfully resolved. Minister Ameen said that his intention was to seek their recommendations to address the issue.
Minister Ameen said that constructing parking buildings is a solution to the traffic problems in Malé, and this is a decision President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu has opted to proceed with soon.