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“How Muizzu Broke the Economy.” Nearly three years into President Muizzu’s term, the Maldives is living with two exchange rates. The official one is still MVR 15.42 per dollar. The real one that ordinary people and businesses face is now over MVR 20 and heading toward 21. The black market is stronger than ever, dollar access for imports, education, medical treatment and online payments has collapsed, and the Rufiyaa has effectively undergone a hidden devaluation. Muizzu came promising to kill the black market and defend the currency. Instead, the gap between official fiction and economic reality has widened dramatically. Even as acknowledgment is due for the structural problems and the difficult inheritance from previous administrations, Muizzu’s government has now governed long enough to own the results. Key failures: • Continued heavy spending and large infrastructure projects while foreign reserves remain under pressure • Political appointments that weakened the independence of BML and the Maldives Monetary Authority • Denial of the crisis (calling BML’s 2024 card restrictions a “financial coup”) & doubling down on imprudent policies • Prioritising political optics over hard economic decisions The black market is not the disease, it is the symptom. People and businesses use it because the official system cannot deliver dollars at the promised rate. The public ultimately pays the hidden cost through higher prices and restricted access. None of the solutions will be painless, they include: • Exchange rate unification (allowing the Rufiyaa to adjust toward market reality, as Egypt did) • Creating a legal, transparent commercial forex window for businesses and individuals alongside protected access for essential imports • Real fiscal austerity — actual cuts in government spending, reviewing mega projects, reducing political appointments and controlling money supply • Restoring independence of BML and the MMA • In extreme cases, even full dollarisation (though this carries huge risks for a tourism-dependent economy like Maldives and is not recommended due to loss of state autonomy) medium.com/@islaveritas/the-…

Mee mihaaru nuve oiy kamakee

Ekamu meehun beyskolhu nulibigen salaan jehumuga

👏🏽 #smallwins

All that illegal money has to go somewhere

They will comply. MATI’s balls have shriveled since they confronted Nasheed over his fiscal policies.

No one asked for this 🙄

Mi hurihaa mageh bandhu koggen Muizzu keeththa mi kuranee 😒

ماشاء الله

Azaan with his apologist’s take on MP salary hike. cry me a river.