The government is using MVR 160 million every month from the taxes paid by the people to give the salaries of political appointees, the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)'s interim Chairperson Abdul Ghafoor Moosa has said.
Speaking at an MDP event last night (January 6), the Hanimadhoo MP said this is an amount that can be used for water and sewerage services on 10 islands. He slammed the government for wasting a total of MVR 174 billion.
Ghafoor said there are 4000 political appointees in the Trump administration compared with 4,100 political appointees in the Muizzu administration.
He said that spending MVR 160 million every month on the salaries of political appointees adds up to MVR 2 billion every year.
Referring to the increasing debt, Ghafoor said the amount is expected to reach MVR 168 billion by the end of this year, out of which 28 percent was accumulated by the Muizzu administration.
He said this is the highest level of debt created over the past six administration. He added that debt stood at MVR 126 billion at the end of the MDP administration in 2023.
"There was a situation where the debt increased during the MDP government. It was during the COVID-19 pandemic. We had to spend. We had to spend without getting revenue. That led to increased debt. That is a real situation," Ghafoor said.
"There is no country that didn't face that problem."
Ghafoor said the government has no shame to seek merging of the two big elections in the name of reducing costs after wasting the state funds for political reasons.
"That's not something we would accept. That's unacceptable," he said.
