Muizzu Orders Stalled Development Projects to Resume

President Mohamed Muizzu has instructed ministers to resume and accelerate stalled development projects across the Maldives, after the government said it had secured solutions to shortages of construction materials linked to conflicts in the Middle East.

The directive came during a Cabinet working session at the President’s Office on 6 October. Ministers and the heads of state-owned enterprises reviewed progress on development work and the President’s electoral pledges across the islands.

In its account of the meeting, the President’s Office said Muizzu called for coordinated work to complete individual projects within their existing deadlines.

The announcement did not identify the projects to be restarted, give a total value for the affected contracts or set out a separate schedule for work on each island. It also did not detail how the material shortages had been resolved.

Public Investment Spending Below Last Year

The instruction comes as recorded expenditure under the Public Sector Investment Programme remains below the level reported for the same period of 2025.

The Finance Ministry’s weekly fiscal report published on 1 October puts investment-programme expenditure at MVR4.49 billion through 24 September, compared with MVR5.14 billion at the corresponding point last year.

The approved annual allocation for the programme is MVR8.31 billion. Recorded spending had therefore reached about 54 per cent of the full-year allocation by the reporting date.

The programme is part of the government’s capital expenditure, which totalled MVR4.67 billion over the period. Recurrent expenditure, covering ongoing government costs, was substantially larger at MVR28.90 billion.

The fiscal report records transactions entered into the government’s accounting system. The ministry cautions that those entries do not necessarily represent payments already settled in cash.

Its figures cover public investment as a whole; the Cabinet statement does not link the stalled projects discussed at the meeting to specific lines in that spending report.

The 6 October session brought the ministries and state companies responsible for implementation together to review progress. The President’s Office said the discussions covered development initiatives across all islands, with the President directing renewed work on projects that had stopped.