President decides to reduce political posts and forgo independence day events

President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, on Thursday night, announced his decision to reduce political posts in light of the nation’s current financial and economic state, and forgo events planned for this year’s Independence Day.

The President, via a post on X, said many steps are in the pipeline in order to reduce the state’s expenses, adding they include various steps to reduce recurrent expenses.

In this regard, the President detailed that these include reducing political posts and either forgoing or reducing the cost of events planned for this year’s Independence Day.

He said relevant authorities have been instructed just organize the national function to mark the Independence Day, at a much lower cost and forgo events such as the reception, float parades and sports events.

President Muizzu noted that additional steps will be announced in the coming days.

The steps come following a warning by Erdem Atas the World Bank Country Economist and Resident Coordinator for Maldives, for immediate expenditure cuts to overcome its current economic vulnerabilities

In a statement on X, Atas said that the economic vulnerabilities Maldives is now facing is a combination of debt stock accumulation in the last 10 years.

Besides this, he said that the continuous high fiscal and current account deficits over the same period also negatively impacted the country's economy.

Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings - a global credit rating agency - had downgraded the Maldives' long-term foreign-currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) from 'B-' to 'CCC+'.