Govt says taxi app component costs MVR 4 million, not MVR 13 million

The government said on Saturday that the taxi service and application component of a project awarded to the Maldives Transport and Contracting Company (MTCC) cost about MVR 4 million, while the MVR 13 million figure covered work to integrate four transport services.

Government spokesperson Mohamed Hussain Shareef addressed the costs following several days of corruption allegations surrounding the “Malé Taxi” application. Critics had questioned the award of the contract without competitive bidding and argued that the reported MVR 13 million cost exceeded what was required to develop an app.

Speaking at a press briefing, Shareef said the MVR 13 million budget covered the integration of the Malé taxi service, buses, Raajje Transport Link (RTL) ferries and cargo transport, including the “Lakkudi” ferry service, into one network.

“Of this total budget, around MVR 4 million is spent on the taxi app—which includes the backend infrastructure, servers, and query management systems,” he said, citing MTCC.

Shareef said the project also included upgrades to the RTL ferry system, with route tracking, distance-based fare calculations and changes intended to address complaints about schedule delays.

The taxi app was the first component made available to the public, he said. Features allowing users to track other transport services online would be introduced in phases.

Responding to questions about the absence of an open tender, Shareef said the Public Finance Act allowed contracts to be awarded directly without competitive bidding. He also said the MVR 13 million project was limited in scale compared with contracts handled by MTCC.

“What I want to emphasise is that the app is just one part of a much larger initiative,” Shareef said. “That specific component cost around MVR 4 million, and work on the remaining components is actively progressing.”