Certain political appointees being asked to resign

RaajjeMV has leant that some officials in the incumbent administration’s political positions are being asked to resign from their positions.

On the condition of anonymity, an individual who holds a political position in a government ministry told RaajjeMV that the President's Office had called and instructed several political appointees to resign from their positions.

The anonymous source cited the political appointees having reported that they were contacted and instructed to resign as per the president’s request.

The anonymous source, who holds a slot from the Maldives Development Alliance (MDA) of MP for Meedhoo constituency Ahmed Siyam Mohamed, further revealed that when the President’s Office called to ask for their resignation, they were told that another job would be arranged for them.

However, they said no details were provided about this.

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.

In response to this announcement, some social media users suggested that the dismissals imply those affected were hired without a clear purpose.

The president 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.