“Little to no progress”: Maldives slides on corruption index

With the slide in the CPI score, the Maldives ranked among the two-thirds of the countries that scored below 50 on a 0-100 scale where zero is the most corrupt.

The 2025 index released by Transparency International ranked countries based on their “perceived level of public sector corruption,” the local chapter of the international anti-corruption organisation explained.

“The country’s systemic corruption continues to manifest at the highest levels of power, reflecting the need for strengthened reform. It also reflects the failure to hold to account for many previous grand corruption scandals,” Transparency Maldives said.

Nearly a decade after the theft of US$ 90 million in an unprecedented corruption scandal, successive administrations have failed to recover stolen assets or secure convictions. Former vice president Ahmed Adeeb, the chief architect of the embezzlement scheme who was imprisoned after confessing in a plea deal, was pardoned by former president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih days before leaving office in November 2023.

Other corruption scandals exposed since then have floundered at the investigation stage. Implicated government officials rarely face trial.

Out of 4345 registered cases in the five-year period to the end of 2023, only 19 were accepted by the Prosecutor General’s Office, according to data published by the Anti-Corruption Commission.

The statistics on asset recovery are more damning. Over the same five year period, the ACC ordered the recovery of over MVR 272 million (US$ 18 million) but only managed to recover MVR 350,058.

The theme of the latest CPI was the climate crisis and corruption. Often overlooked, corruption is a major obstacle that hinders climate action in the Maldives, Transparency Maldives said.

The centralisation of resources and power has worsened the country’s response to the climate crisis, Asiath Rilweena, TM's executive director, told the Maldives Independent.

“We are witnessing ever more centralization of power, making ordinary people powerless. Despite being one of the most vocal advocates of recovery and protection from climate change in the global arena and being known as one of the world's most vulnerable countries and populations to climate change, we need to question whether climate disaster management policies or climate adaptation and mitigation policies are taken for the benefit of all, or for the benefit of a particular group of people,” she explained. 

“The state must make and implement laws and policies that protect the country's basic democratic systems, eliminate corruption, and that make climate adaptation and mitigation policies a top priority.”.

Rilweena noted the recent decision to merge the tourism and environment ministries and questioned the government's commitment to climate action.

“Poor planning, lack of transparency, possible conflicts of interest, conflicting mandates are a few instances that can lead to a major undermining of climate risks and increased corruption vulnerability within the sector,” she said.

Meanwhile, watchdog bodies have failed to deliver on critical anti-corruption measures, TM noted. The resulting gap in oversight has fostered a culture of impunity where corruption has been normalised, the NGO said.

“Most independent bodies are unable to effectively and independently carry out their mandate to monitor the executives activities due to financial and technical constraints and political influence,” the anti-corruption group concluded.

The CPI score of the Maldives was derived from the Global Insight Country Rankings, Varieties of Democracy Project, and the World Bank Country Report and Institutional Assessment.