Speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Nasheed says China has intentionally inflated the price of the developmental projects it had conducted in the Maldives.
He made the accusations in an interview with India's WION on his trip to the country for the Raisina Dialogue 2022.
Nasheed said that ex-President Abdullah Yameen's developmental philosophy with China created huge debts and that the debts have no relation to the assets created.
He said that the asset value is not a third of the debt and accused the Chinese of intentionally inflating the price of the projects so that the business plan would fail.
Nasheed further said that you will never get a yield to pay back the debt from these assets and then you will default and they ask for equity.
He pointed out that with equity you lose land, and with land, you lose sovereignty. Nasheed further said that this was what was happening in Sri Lanka and that it was a grave issue.
In his interview, Nasheed lauded the loans issued by India saying that they had a proper price.
Nasheed said that India is giving a lot of small grants and that the Maldives are not looking for big concrete.
He said that the country needs nature-based adaptions, and hybrid adaption and these things can be done through smaller interventions than huge big loans.
