PO launches Isles web portal, in bid to improve transparency of govt. projects

The President’s Office has launched Isles, a web portal dedicated to showcasing information on developmental projects run by the government, in a bid to improve transparency and accountability of the government will respect to its projects across Maldives.

The web portal was launched this Monday during the Viyavathi Raajje Councilors’ Conference underway at Crossroads Maldives.

At the launching ceremony, President’s Office Policy Secretary, Aminath Shauna announced that the web portal had originally been launched ten years back.

She said that the main purpose of the web portal was to share information on government projects with the public, and to establish easy access to such information.

President’s Office reports that the Isles web portal is both interactive and user friendly, and lists the latest updates regarding economic and social projects in each island.

It also details expenditure, tracks progress, and lists other important information regarding each project.

Other information available through Isles includes details of government administrative offices, residential islands, non-residential islands, tourist islands, industrial islands, protected islands and conservation sites.

The information is accompanied by photographs of islands, electoral districts, post codes, and the land mass and population of each island.

The general information available of residential islands through Isles includes census records, census records used by councils, population of residents with special needs, and population of migrant workers.

It also includes categorized information on public utilities, resources for infrastructure development, and institutes which provide public services such as healthcare.

The President’s Office reports the information is enough to gain an overall assessment of the status of each island.

The President’s Office is also working towards including economic figures of individual islands in association with the central bank, Maldives Monetary Authority.

“This includes GST, working population and income of individual islands. All this will be available in the future,” said Shauna.

She said that the land use plans for islands which have been approved the plans, will also be available for download.

Isles also showcases Public Sector Investment Program (PSIP) projects under the 2019 and 2020 budget, the funding agencies of each of the projects, along with information on officials elected to councils and parliamentary representatives.

“The purpose is to truly share the information available to the government with the public, and to disclose these information – a move which will serve as a driving force for state and government institutions to speed up the projects – as transparently as possible,” said Shauna.