President Dr Mohamed Muizzu has said the government plans to reduce the number of political staff in ministries following an ongoing performance evaluation process, after previously downsizing the cabinet through the merger of ministries.

Speaking on PSM’s Nation Chat programme last night, the President said the restructuring had already improved government efficiency and that further reforms were being planned.

“Not only did we reduce ministers. We are also going through the process of reducing political staff in ministries,” President Muizzu said.

“We are doing the assessment and deciding now to reduce people based on performance, and we are checking how many people from where can be reduced. Once the evaluation is done, we will implement it,” he added.

The President said the merger of ministries and reduction in cabinet positions had already produced positive results. As an example, he cited improvements in the processing time for requests related to students studying abroad.

According to President Muizzu, such requests previously took an average of four weeks to process, but now take around four days.

“This way, a lot of things are being improved within the merged ministries, or within the changed ministries,” he said.

The cabinet reshuffle followed the sudden resignation of 10 ministers earlier this year. At the time, the President’s Office said the changes were intended to facilitate reforms aimed at aligning the government more closely with public expectations.

Following the resignations, several ministries were merged and ministers were reassigned before being reappointed to the cabinet.

Before the restructuring, the cabinet consisted of 20 ministers. It now comprises 14 ministers and the Attorney General, bringing the total number of cabinet members to 15.