Four Ministries Meet RTI Transparency Rules as Government Sets End-of-Week Deadline for Full Compliance

MALE’ — Four government ministries have achieved full compliance with the Maldives’ proactive disclosure requirements under the Right to Information Act, with the remaining cabinet portfolios racing to publish mandatory institutional data before the end of this week.

President Dr Mohamed Muizzu confirmed the push at a press conference at the President’s Office today, saying the Information Commissioner’s Office has formally verified the compliance of the four ministries. He said the remaining ministries are close to finishing and that the target is full compliance across all ministries before the week is out.

The RTI Act was passed in 2014. Section 37 of the law requires all state bodies to independently publish a range of institutional data at least once a year, without waiting for a formal request. The required disclosures include organisational structures, details of public services provided, grievance mechanisms and summaries of public complaints received. In the twelve years since the law came into force, successive governments failed to enforce the provision, despite the Information Commissioner’s Office repeatedly flagging the gap.

The current push addresses both proactive disclosures and individual RTI requests. President Muizzu said government offices are actively processing pending requests within their legal timeframes and that all overdue or expired applications currently stalled in the system will be cleared.

Twelve years is a long time to leave a transparency law on the books without enforcing its core obligation. The RTI Act was passed under the Waheed government, extended through the Yameen years, and remained unenforced through two MDP administrations. The current government is now moving to correct that record under a self-imposed deadline that ends this week.

Whether the rush to comply before the deadline reflects genuine institutional commitment to transparency or a desire to clear a legal liability before it becomes a public issue is a question the compliance figures alone cannot answer. What the Information Commissioner says about the quality of the disclosures, not just their existence, will matter more in the long run.