Transparency Maldives (TM) has stated that government companies created 15,000 jobs in the past two years.
According to TM's recent pre-election interim assessment, state-owned companies created 15,000 jobs from 2021 to 2023.
The number of jobs created by those companies from 2019 to 2021 is 10,000 and the total number has now increased to 25,000, the report said.
Despite the high number of jobs created by government companies, there are many challenges and risks in the management of the companies, it added.
The report stated that this could have many adverse effects.
- Political influence in the appointment of boards of state-owned companies and facilitation of political influence and electoral gain through board members.
- Political relationships between the government, a political party and corporate executives facilitate political and electoral gains.
- Facilitating political and electoral gains in spending on activities in different parts of the country without a strong and transparent CSR policy.
- Weakness or lack of risk management systems in some companies leads to political and electoral gains.
TM further cited a previous study and said the governance systems of state-owned companies are less transparent.
According to the report, 64 cases related to the right to information were submitted to the Information Commissioner's Office since 2019.
