The Cabinet has approved a package of special measures aimed at strengthening public service delivery and accelerating government projects, including the full operationalisation of two project-monitoring systems by the end of this week. According to the President’s Office, the decisions were taken at a Cabinet meeting held on Sunday, 28 June. The central measure is to fully operationalise the Government’s Dhuveli portal, used to monitor government projects and activities, together with the Public Investment Management System, or PIMS, developed by the Ministry of Finance and Public Enterprises. Once operational, both systems are to be updated continuously to enable real-time monitoring of project implementation, the President’s Office said.
The Cabinet also approved the creation of a dedicated team within the Finance Ministry to identify and resolve problems affecting projects carried out by ministries and state-owned enterprises. Every ministry has also been directed to establish a dedicated unit to monitor the day-to-day progress of its projects. The move signals an attempt to centralise implementation oversight at a time when the Government is under pressure to deliver a large portfolio of infrastructure, housing, transport and public service projects while managing tight fiscal conditions. The President’s Office said the Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, the Ministry of Finance and Public Enterprises, and contractors responsible for infrastructure projects will coordinate efforts to ensure projects are completed within their scheduled timeframes.
The measures come against the backdrop of a 2026 national budget of MVR 64.2 billion, with official budget documents projecting expenditure of MVR 49.2 billion and total debt at 127.6 percent of GDP for the year. The budget also identifies public service delivery, macro-fiscal stability, fiscal discipline and debt sustainability as core objectives. The International Monetary Fund, in its latest Maldives mission statement this month, warned that the country continues to face elevated fiscal and debt vulnerabilities and said state-owned enterprises remain a material source of fiscal and governance risk. The IMF also called for stronger oversight, expenditure control and improvements to public financial and investment management.
In that context, the Cabinet’s emphasis on Dhuveli and PIMS is administratively significant. If implemented properly, the systems could allow the Government to move from periodic reporting to live monitoring of project milestones, contractor progress, bottlenecks, payment issues and inter-agency delays. However, several operational questions remain unanswered. The President’s Office statement did not say whether the monitoring data will be made public, whether project-level dashboards will include budget execution and physical progress, or whether ministries and SOEs will face formal consequences for late or inaccurate updates. It also did not specify who will independently verify contractor-reported progress.
The Cabinet also directed that all necessary measures be prioritised to establish the nationwide Raajje Transport Link ferry network and commence services before the end of January 2027. That deadline places renewed attention on the RTL rollout. Earlier reporting this year showed the network had expanded to 15 atolls with the launch of service in Laamu Atoll in April. At that time, RTL services had still not been launched in Meemu, Kaafu, Alifu Alifu, Alifu Dhaalu and Vaavu atolls, while concerns had also emerged over cancelled trips in some operational areas.
The Cabinet decision therefore appears to convert the remaining RTL expansion into a Cabinet-level delivery priority. For island communities, the issue is not only network coverage but service reliability, frequency, affordability and integration with harbour infrastructure. The Cabinet also approved a new safety restriction on chemical storage facilities across the islands. Under the decision, approvals for chemical storage sites will be granted only where facilities are located at a safe distance from residential areas, in line with safety standards applied in Malé.
The President’s Office said the decision follows recent hazardous incidents involving chemical storage facilities and is intended to improve public safety nationwide. The safety decision aligns with wider government work on chemical management. In April, the Environment Ministry said hazardous chemical storage and management facilities being developed in the Maldives were expected to be completed within 2026. The ministry said a chemical storage warehouse had already been established in Addu, while a chemical management facility in R. Vandhoo was 30 percent complete. Officials also said work was underway to update Makudi, the portal used for chemical importation.
The new Cabinet measures also sit within the Government’s broader digital transformation agenda. Parliament recently began preliminary debate on the Maldives 2.0 Digital Transformation Bill, which proposes a national citizen portal, digital identity-based services, secure data exchange between state agencies and the creation of a Maldives Digital Service to coordinate state digital infrastructure. Dhuveli and PIMS are not the same as the proposed citizen portal. The citizen portal is intended to provide public access to government services, while Dhuveli and PIMS appear to be project and investment monitoring tools. But together, the initiatives point to the same policy direction: tighter central coordination of government systems through digital platforms.
The success of the Cabinet’s latest decision will depend less on the existence of portals and more on institutional discipline. Real-time systems are only as reliable as the data entered into them. For project monitoring to work, ministries must maintain current schedules, validated physical progress, financial progress, variation orders, contractor claims, unresolved permits and decision points. For major infrastructure projects, the Government will also need clear escalation rules. A monitoring system can identify delay, but delivery depends on whether ministries, SOEs, contractors, councils and regulators are compelled to act on the information.
For now, the Cabinet has set a clear administrative direction: government projects are to be tracked more closely, ministries are to create delivery units, Finance is to troubleshoot stalled projects, RTL is to be pushed toward national launch, and chemical storage approvals are to be tied to stronger public safety conditions.
