Addu outraged over constant power outages, MPs question FENAKA

Addu City, Maldives' second largest urban hub, is grappling with an unprecedented power and water supply crisis with regular outages disrupting daily life.

With residents reporting outages as frequent as three times a day in some areas, for the people of Addu, it remains a stark reminder of the decades-long struggle with unreliable utility services and unfulfilled promises by successive administrations.

Messages shared in FENAKA’s dedicated Viber community groups for Addu City, established to notify residents of planned disruptions, reveal that these power cuts are far from new. Notices that "electricity will be disconnected to manage increasing load" date back as early as October 2024, underscoring the persistent nature of the crisis.

Technical issues supplying water are also becoming a common occurrence, especially at night.

Residents of the city have been voicing their concern over the disruptions of these basic utility services for quite some time now. Especially with Ramadan nearing, a month where electricity and water consumption always increases, many are questioning how FENAKA would manage when the time comes.

Others have also taken to social media with complaints of their household appliances being damaged, school exams being postponed due to blackouts and difficulties faced by households with babies, elderly and sick people. Some have even said there should be a way to seek compensation from FENAKA for the damages.

In a statement published last night, the utility company said the power issues are caused by a fault in the CPS generator set, and that they are trying to procure spare parts to resolve the issue.

FENAKA further detailed that they received the parts needed to fix one of the generator sets and assured that the other generator sets would also be fixed as soon as spare parts become available. However, the state owned company did not specify a date.

Apart from apologising for the inconvenience and notifying that power cuts will continue until the matter is resolved, no long term solutions have been offered or implemented to offer sustainable services to the city.

"We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to the residents of the connected islands of Addu City. We assure you that our teams are continuously working to resolve this issue as soon as possible and restore the power supply to normal," FENAKA's statement read.

Addu City's mayor Ali Nizar told Mihaaru News that this time the issue occurred due to the generators not being upgraded for a long time.

Nizar also confirmed that the connected islands of the city experience about three hours of power cuts everyday.

He also said that extensive meetings have been held with FENAKA regarding the matter, and expressed concern over the prolonged status of utility limbo the city is left in.

Nizar said the solution to this long overdue issue is bringing more generators to the city.

"FENAKA says they are working on it. But we don't know what they are doing. The work they are doing isn't making much of a difference. This cannot be solved without installing new generators," the mayor said.

Nizar also highlighted the issue of sewerage services, saying "all utilities services here [Addu] have failed."

While the connected islands require 12 megawatts during peak hours, about 20 generators with a total capacity of MVR 26.8 megawatts have been installed in the powerhouse in Hithadhoo. But late last year, five generators broke down, reducing the powerhouse' capacity.

Central Hithadhoo MP and ruling party member Ahmed Azaan also addressed the issue via a post on X last night. Posting a picture with other MPs of Addu, he said that they discussed the matter and are prepared to do whatever necessary to resolve the issue.

Today, the MPs went to FENAKA and met with the company's management seeking answers. FENAKA said that the meeting centred around Addu's electricity issue. However, no further details were shared.

In April last year, FENAKA contracted Chinese company DEC Dongfeng Electric Machinery Co., Ltd to fix the city's electricity issues.

Under the agreement, FENAKA said a power plant with the capacity of 30 megawatts would be installed to solve the long-standing electricity problem in Addu City.

FENAKA held discussions with the council last September to provide additional land for the new power plant. At the time, the company's Managing Director Muaz Mohamed Rasheed had said that the new power plant would solve the electricity problem in Addu City.

However, the progress of this project is still unclear.