Finance Ministry says the government has released MVR 44.5 million as the frontline allowance for security forces amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Ministry said the frontline allowance given to those who carryout COVID-19 related duties was deposited to the accounts of 6518 individuals from the Police Force and Maldives National Defense Force MNDF yesterday. The Ministry said that the total amount deposited yesterday reached MVR 44.5 million.
It said 3334 soldiers from MNDF received the frontline allowance and this amounted to a total of MVR 24 million. The Ministry also said that 3184 police officers were issued the allowance and that amounted to MVR 20.5 million.
The Finance Ministry said with this a total of MVR 78 million has been released as frontline allowance with the country continuing its battle against the COVID-19 pandemic which has claimed 33 lives in the Maldives.
The government has been issuing the frontline allowance amid serious accusations of bias and inequality when administering these allowances. Recently, the nurses and staff of the Hulhumale Hospital have protested over discrimination in the government's disbursement of risk and other relevant allowances.
Many of the protest's participants had stressed on several of the nursing fraternity members not subjected to such allowances, while cases of inequal allowance pay have been raised.
