Fiscal updates haven’t been publicized in a month

The Maldivian administration hasn’t published its weekly fiscal reports – an account of the state’s expenses and revenue - in close to a month.

Finance Ministry publishes updates on fiscal developments on a weekly basis. However, the ministry’s website shows the last fiscal report was released on September 23, showing fiscal developments as of September 18.

President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu’s administration had also been hit with criticism over its failure to publish fiscal reports in the early days of the administration. At the time, the incumbent administration blamed it on irregular accounting of expenses by the previous administration. Finance Minister Moosa Zameer said at the time that there were MVR 2 billion unaccounted for.

But the Finance Ministry continued to be irregular in its disclosure of fiscal reports, including a one-month lull between March and April.

The Finance Ministry was not immediately available for official comment regarding the latest lapse in publicizing weekly fiscal developments.

The latest fiscal report released by the ministry shows the state received MVR 27.4 billion in revenues and grants, and spent MVR 26.6 billion as of September 18.

While the overall expenditure fell by 15.13 percent – mainly due to a 57 percent drop in capital expenditure – recurrent expenses such as spending on pensions rose by 6 percent.

Maldives has been struggling under the weight of staggering external debt obligations, which now stands at 134 percent of the country’s GDP.

The island nation allocated MVR 3.87 billion for loan repayments in the 2025 budget, but has already spent above this figure - with MVR 4.32 billion as of mid-September.

The country has a staggering USD 1.1 billion due in mid-2026.

The Finance Ministry has written in fiscal reforms aimed at aimed to saving MVR 6.6 billion when it submitted the 2025 budget, including phasing out broad subsidies in favor of targeted subsidies, included restructuring the Aasandha system, restructuring the pension scheme, and reforming state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

However, these measures have not been implemented, despite urgent appeals by international financial institutions to implement the reform agenda announced by the Maldives in order to alleviate risks of it defaulting on its staggering external debt obligations.

In May, President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu announced that instead of cutting costs by rolling back subsidies and other benefits, his administration plans to cut costs by changing how projects are run and awarding government contracts to SOEs instead of private contractors.

Despite the growing pressures, the government has repeatedly expressed confidence in its ability to meet the external debt obligations, with President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu recently telling the public that there’s no cause for alarm, and that the country has been making regular debt repayments.