1,029 Political Appointments Made By Solih Govt In 3 Years: Yameen

Opposition leader, former President Abdullah Yameen Abdul Gayyoom has stated that a common criticism against his administration had been the perceived large number of political appointments. However, he said, the current government has accumulated more than 1,000 political appointments in the past 3 years.

The former President mentioned this while speaking at a campaign event held in Foakaidhoo (Shaviyani Atoll); which is part of the Komandoo (Shaviyani Atoll) constituency.

He said that people had said that President Yameen had made political appointments, and he said that he would respond in statistics. He said that within the five years of his term, he had made 689 political appointments; however, by the time this government comes to an end, there would be a far bigger number of appointments than he had made. He said that the current government had made 1,029 political appointments within the past three years.

In addition, he said that every political appointment was approximately MVR28,000. He said that while the government had made this many appointments for political ends, he did not see the jobs created by the government for young people. He said that the government created 6,000 jobs in the past three years and that this was not a number to be proud of.

It is worth noting that the government had made 785 appointments until 2019. The State had assigned MVR331 million in the State's budget for that year to pay for those 785 appointments. An analysis of the budget by the Parliament Budget Committee showed that the highest number of political appointments made by the Solih administration were in the President's Office, followed by the Health Ministry, and then the Youth Ministry.