The Youth Ministry has announced that 40 media outlets have been fined a total of 27 million Rufiyaa for failing to meet the criteria for receiving state budget financial assistance. The ministry stated that the process of imposing these fines was initiated by them.

One of the conditions for receiving the assistance is that the media outlet must have been registered and operating for three years. The criteria did not allow for consideration of the number of employees at the media outlets, and as a result, 18 media outlets were immediately disqualified from the financial aid.

Following this, the matter was escalated and referred to the Media Commission, after which the government proceeded with the action. Consequently, the Youth Ministry handed over the responsibility of collecting the fines to the Finance Ministry.

Confirming this action in a post on social media, the ministry stated that, in line with the vision of President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, fines totaling 27.29 million Rufiyaa have been imposed on 40 media outlets.

After making some changes to the criteria for financial assistance and opening the opportunity to apply, 57 media outlets created profiles on the designated portal. Of these, 41 media outlets met the conditions. According to the Media Commission, the final deadline for applications this December was met by 39 media outlets.

The condition applies to private media outlets that have been operating without interruption since obtaining a license following registration before January 1, 2024.

The list of fines includes: Sangu Online (1.1 million Rufiyaa), Sun Online (1.1 million Rufiyaa), Vnews (997,915 Rufiyaa), Ice TV (908,358 Rufiyaa), Dhivehi Channel (876,374 Rufiyaa), Mihaaru Online (793,214 Rufiyaa), Vaguthu Online (754,833 Rufiyaa), Van Online (710,055 Rufiyaa), Dhauru Online (697,261 Rufiyaa), Corporate Maldives Magazine (690,864 Rufiyaa), and The Edition (633,292.18 Rufiyaa).

The Media Commission had previously stated that the evaluation for assistance would consider factors such as the media’s establishment date and employee count, the media outlet’s or media house’s development plans, business profile and content quality, as well as the educational background and experience of staff and administrative systems.

For this year, 27 million Rufiyaa was allocated from the state budget to be provided to media outlets. This amounts to 0.1 percent of the budget allocated for Ameen’s projects.