Reducing political positions: two dismissed state ministers appointed to other ministries

As part of the policy of reducing political positions announced by President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, two state ministers have been dismissed and appointed to two other ministries.

Dr. Abdullah Fairoosh who was serving as a State Minister at the Ministry of Higher Education, Labour and Skills Development and Aishath Safoora who was serving as a State Minister at the Ministry of Education were dismissed and appointed to other ministries.

Fairoosh has since been appointed to the Ministry of Homeland Security and Technology and Safoora has been appointed as a state minister at the Ministry of Defense.

With this change, the Ministry of Defense now has two state ministers and two deputy ministers and the Ministry of Homeland Security and Technology has four state ministers and 13 deputy ministers.

On October 15, Muizzu took to social media platform ‘X’, announcing that he has instructed to remove 228 political appointees from various government ministries as a direct measure to cut down government expenditure, under the Economic Reform Agenda.

He said that this will be done within the next 15 days.

These include seven state ministers, 43 deputy ministers, 109 senior political directors and 69 political directors.

Muizzu said that this would save MVR 5.714 million every month from the government budget. This amounts to MVR 68.568 million annually.

Although Muizzu has revealed that some political positions in the government will be eliminated, the government is yet to disclose details about who these individuals are.

Although the president had claimed that the government would adopt a transparent policy, so far his administration has failed to disclose the total number of political posts made so far.

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, the president 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.