Economic Minister Fayyaz Ismail says it would take another 18 months to complete the detention center being built in Gulheefalhu for illegal migrants.
Speaking at the parliament's foreign relations committee, Minister Fayyaz said that the issue of illegal migrants had been left unresolved for years and that this administration had worked to rectify the problem with results achieved so far.
Fayyaz further said that a huge amount of resources are required to fully resolve the issue and that securing these resources had now been a hurdle.
The Minister further highlighted that Immigration is tasked with apprehending undocumented migrants but its detention center can only hold up to 48 people.
Fayyaz said that the government is building a detention facility in Gulheefalhu and that it can house around 300 to 500 people.
He said that since the project is outside of the budget it would be difficult to see it out but it was being carried out by a corporate responsibility initiative of MTCC.
Minister Fayyaz said that the operational cost of the facility would be considerably high and estimated that it would cost MVR 18,000 to operate the detention center.
