Friday
22nd Nov 2024
Dhivehi Edition
Political appointees of the government.
The government has appointed over 310 political appointees at various ministries.
TMJ acquired a list of all the political hires within President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s administration via a source from the President’s Office, which stated that exactly 310 political appointees are presently employed within the ministries. Although the majority of these appointments belonged to MDP, members of Jumhooree Party, MRM and Adhaalath Party were listed as well.
Breakdown of Political Hires within various Ministries:
Cabinet Ministers: 18
State Ministers: 44
Deputy Ministers: 47
Senior Policy Directors/Senior Executive Directors/Senior Directors: 121
Directors and Photographers: 5
Policy Directors and Executive Directors: 60
PAs for Ministers: 15
According to the documents shared by our source, a senior official at the President’s Office, the 310 political post holders collectively receive MVR 8 million in compensation; salary and allowances, each month.
The Senior Policy Directors, Senior Executive Directors and Senior Directors receive the highest salaries, with over MVR 3 million collected monthly.
While the political employees at the ministries constitute a mere 30 percent of the aggregate number of political hires by the Solih administration, authorities and offices answering to these ministries have employed a considerable amount of political posts as well. Furthermore, state owned companies, the President’s Office and overseas embassies have also recruited hundreds of political entities.
Ironically, while the educational qualifications for politically inclined positions at the state’s ministries are set at O’level standard, these positions pay almost as much, if not more, as the highest paying civil servants with technical expertise.
Personal Assistants to the Ministers are the lowest political post and yet they get paid MVR 15,000 in salary per month. The norm is such that if a civil servant was to get paid MVR 15,000 per month, they would have likely had to have worked for years and would have had to put in overtime to reach the mark.
Even though nearly MVR 100 million is spared from the annual state budget to pay for the “services” of these employees, some of the hired individuals have no responsibilities other than simply holding s title.