The Minister of Finance and Public Enterprises Hassan Zareer has stated in Parliament that 18,053 staff were hired for state owned companies during the five-year term of Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and that 4,938 staff have been hired since the current government took office.
The minister was summoned to Parliament to answer a question from North Galolhu Constituency MP Mohamed Ibrahim (Kudu), stating what are the regulations in which MDP staff are dismissed from their positions as it is not legally allowed to hire and dismiss someone from any state position based on their political opinions or affiliations.
While answering the question, Zareer said that the current government does not believe in dismissing and hiring an employee to a state-owned enterprise (SOE) based on their political opinions or affiliations. He also said that no such actions have been conveyed from the ministry to any SOE.
However, Zareer said that he will work to ensure that SOE's are being run in an appropriate manner, and that SOE expenses are used to complete company efforts and aims. He said that instructions are being given for the steps needed to achieve that.
"In order to ensure the company runs properly, the ministry is giving out the necessary instructions and taking the necessary steps to make the companies manageable with the expenses from the revenue that is generated."
Zareer went on to say that aside from the direction policies, no instruction has been given regarding staff reduction, dismissal and other day-to-day activities within SOEs.
According to the minister, employees in the public sector amount to 53 percent in Maldives. Because of this, the Maldivian economy is very "unstructured", and work needs to be done to solve it, said the minister.
While highlighting that records from the Privatization and Corporatization Board (PCB) have been looked into regarding how staff have been hired to companies, Zareer said that there were 18,676 employees in companies in 2018.
However, that figure had gone up by 100 percent from 2019 to 2023.
Zareer stated that within that time frame, there were 36,729 staff at companies. However, he stated that with the hiring of 4,938 staff by the current government from 2024, that number has gone up to 41,667.
Minister Zareer said that if the Maldivian economy is to be strengthened similar to the steps being taken by developed countries, the number of employees need to be reduced.
