Opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali and Speaker of Parliament Abdulla Shahid – also a DRP MP – have dismissed allegations republished in local media that they each accepted bribes of US$1 million from Indian infrastructure giant GMR to stall parliament sittings until the GMR-Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) consortium took over management of Male’ International Airport.
Parliament Majority Leader Thasmeen dismissed the rumours as “a total fabrication” linked to opposing political agendas while Speaker Shahid said he had “never met [GMR officials] and never been offered anything.”
“These allegations originated in an internet site called the Dhivehi Post,” Thasmeen told Minivan News today. “If you go through it you can make a reasonable guess as to who they support.”
He added that the party’s opposition to the GMR airport deal had not changed as DRP signed an agreement with four opposition parties in parliament to oppose the leasing of the international airport.
Managing Director of GMR Male International Airport Limited P Sripathy described the claims as “totally false and baseless, and very disappointing and damaging to our reputation. We have never met any members of the opposition to date.”
“The GMR Group is in Male’ on serious business – to build a world class, benchmark airport that people of Male’ and the Group will be very proud of,” he added.
The rumours of the senior DRP officias accepting bribes from GMR surfaced in the Dhivehi Post blog earlier this month, a website that routinely refers to President Mohamed Nasheed as “bipolar” and “ganjabo” (marijuana smoker).
The DRP, DQP, JP and PA formed an opposition coalition in June to protest against the airport deal, on nationalistic grounds. Deputy Leader of the DRP Umar Naseer told Minivan News on June 28 that ” if [the operators] allowed it, an Israel flight can come and stop over after bombing Arab countries.”
The government has alleged that opposition to the airport deal stems from the “vested interests” of certain MPs, several of whom it arrested following the resignation of cabinet on June 29 in protest against the “scorched earth politics” of the opposition-majority parliament.
The fuel trade is the most immediately lucrative part of the airport deal, Minivan News understands, and is a key reason behind both GMR’s interest and the government’s decision to award the contract to the Indian infrastructure giant. GMR has told Minivan News it will amalgamate the trade under one umbrella, a decision that will likely affect current third party suppliers.
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Dhivehi Post is run by the Opposition, so it makes no sense to accuse Shahid and Thasmin of corruption through that blogspot. Whats is being done here is that a phantom accusation is made so that Thasmeen and Shahid can expose the allegation and claim to be honest people. This is the same gimmick that Yamin played with the phoney bank statement!
Why havent' Shahid and Thasmeen declared their assets and interests to the parliament? Why doesn't Thasmeen repay his loans to BML? Why doesn't Shahid explain how he has bought houses in UK and elsewhere?
I would also like to know how Shahid got a resort island when he was Executive Secretary under Maumoon, which he sold immediately afterwards.
may be they hacked the website, as often happens in maldives nowadays.
Quoted from Article: "while Speaker Shahid said he had “never met [GMR officials] and never been offered anything.”
Is that a logical argument.? Anyways. If it is false ... that would be decent enough!
Hey minivan. Very important news for you. Allegations of a secret wedding of Sheikh Fareed and a 21 year old maldivian in Srilanka. I guess it will be good news since you are after the mullas.
But the opposition says that Sheikh Fareed and Islamic foundation are MDPs puppets. MDP uses him against Adhaalath party. So will you be able to bring that news?
GMR officials were at Kurumba Village around the time of the staff demonstration and both Shaahid and Thasmeen visited the resort to meet them. Many of our senior staff and perhaps even some directors may know of their visit.
Thasmeen and Shaahid to say that they had not met them is not true but what can we expect. Their purpose of meeting in Kurumba I am do not know, but they certainly did meet them.
Perhaps we should look out the box here; from DRP and MDP
thasmeen is such a rustic person that he does not realize that he himself should get cleaned up before criticizing the government.
I could not have written that better myself.
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