Minister Saeed: Govt. aims to modernize SOEs

Economic Minister Mohamed Saeed states the current administration aims to modernize state-owned companies and ensure they are trusted entities.

He made the remark while speaking at PSM’s ‘Raajje Miadhu’ program on Saturday night.

The Minister said most state-owned companies were at a dire state when President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu’s administration assumed office. In this regard, he detailed that Fenaka Corporation had been at a point where it is almost impossible to recover with the company’s debt burdens at billions.

Henceforth, he said the current administration aims to strengthen such companies' management to pave the way for their modernization and raise their standards as credible companies before international financial institutions.

“Not only locals. If improving the state of the companies and modernizing them require international expertise, such individuals will be brought. Our administration’s president’s goal is to modernize the companies and establish credibility before the people and internationally,” he said.

Speaking further, Minister Saeed said the government, as part of reforming the state-owned companies, plans to dissolve companies that require it and merge companies with similar work scope.

Notably, the government has already commenced reform efforts with significant steps taken to strengthen the operations of the state fisheries company, MIFCO.

Over 20 state-owned companies scored below 40 percent with respect to the disclosure of their corporate governance mechanism in Transparency Maldives (TM)’s Governance Transparency Index (CGTI).