A new deputy minister has been appointed to the Ministry of Climate Change, Environment and Energy once more.

Appointed as a Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Climate Change, Environment and Energy was Fazna Jaleel.

Prior to her appointment, Fazna served as the President of the Netball Association of Maldives (NAM).

According to its official website, the environment ministry already has 47 political employees including 14 deputy ministers, seven state ministers and several other political positions.

The incumbent administration came to power with a promise that the number of political appointees would not exceed 700. The incumbent administration also criticized the former administration of now opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) for appointing “too many” political appointees.

However, the number of political appointees has increased manifold since the administration took over, with the government drawing public criticism as well, for refusing to disclose the figure.

Recently, President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu announced several measures to reduce public expenditure and took to social media platform ‘X’  to shed light on a series of strict measures to be implemented in a bid to cut down public expenditure, especially recurring expenses.

Some of the measures to be implemented in this effort included reducing the number of political posts within his administration.

Further, unnecessary celebratory events were also to be limited or even cancelled overall.

In addition to this, the president also shed light on the upcoming announcement of additional measures to further reduce public expenditure, in the “near” future.