Muizzu: There will be 22 ministries, but expenses will not increase

President-elect Dr. Mohamed Muizzu says that his administration will have 22 ministries, but the expenses will not be higher compared to previous administrations.

In an interview to Public Service Media (PSM) on Saturday, Muizzu said he will be splitting some of the existing ministries and creating new ones in order to conduct “serious and focused” work.

He said that the mandate of some of the existing ministries were too expansive, leaving it unable to conduct any of its work efficiently.

“There are multiple functions within a single ministry. They are unable to do any of this right. For example, lets take a look at the Planning Ministry. Its evident the Planning Ministry is unable to conduct its work, if you look at the [Thilamale’] bridge [project]. Or the Ameenee Magu. I don’t want this to happen. In addition to appointing an efficient team, the ministries will be designed so the team can carry out focused work,” he said.

Muizzu said his administration will have 22 ministries, including “two or three” new ones.

“There are pledges I made during my campaign. I pledged to establish a Agriculture Ministry, I pledged to establish a ministry to improve the efficiency of the decentralization system, that ministries will prioritize the promotion of the Dhivehi language. But I thing there will be two or three ministries that are new, and not ones that are split,” he said.

Muizzu said that the move will not increase political appointees, and that he will cap political appointments at 700 as previously stated – which he noted is a smaller number than that during the last two administrations.

Muizzu added that though the number of government ministries will increase, no new buildings will be rented to run government offices.

He promised to keep recurrent expenses low.

“In Sha Allah, we will manage with the spaces we currently have. Political posts will be low. We will manage with what we have. The civil service will not be big per se either,” he said.