News Desk
In a bid to break a cycle of political disruption that has long left half-finished infrastructure projects rusting across its islands, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu announced that his administration is drafting legislation to legally lock in a 20-year national development strategy.
The proposed master plan, aimed at elevating the Maldives to developed-nation status by 2040, is intended to insulate long-term economic planning from the volatile tides of presidential politics.
Speaking on Nation Chat, a podcast produced by Public Service Media, the state broadcaster, President Muizzu said that successive governments have routinely abandoned or reversed major public works initiated by their political rivals. This administrative pendulum, he argued, has caused severe financial waste and repeatedly derailed the nation’s economic trajectory.
Yet critics point out that Muizzu’s own administration has faced similar accusations. Following his election, opposition leaders and the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) claimed that his government stalled or deprioritized several Solih-era initiatives to redirect capital toward his flagship Rasmale’ reclamation project.
To prevent the new 20-year vision from becoming another discarded policy paper, the government is framing a bespoke statutory act to give the plan full legal force. Under the draft legislation, future cabinets would be legally bound to maintain project continuity, ensuring that major national initiatives survive changes of power and providing international investors with rare policy certainty in a region prone to political swings.
The strategy also serves a broader diplomatic purpose. President Muizzu noted that he had deliberately highlighted the 20-year roadmap during his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly to reshape how the global community views the nation.
President Muizzu expressed confidence that anchoring the nation’s 2040 goals in law is the only way to ensure that public investments yield lasting benefits for the people.
