The Malaysian IT company at the center of legal wrangling over a deal to provide a border control system (BCS) to the Maldivian government has alleged “criminal elements” could be behind efforts to scupper the agreement.
Vice President for Nexbis Nafies Aziz told Minivan News that “intelligence” received by the company suggested groups backing the country’s lucrative human trafficking industry could be seeking to stymie the introduction of its BCS to undermine national security controls.
The comments were made following an appeal hearing held at the country’s Supreme Court on January 9 to block an unanimous vote by parliament to terminate Nexbis’ agreement with the government over allegations of “foul play”.
The country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) said that regardless of its concerns about human trafficking in the Maldives, a case regarding the Nexbis’ deal had been submitted to the Prosecutor General (PG’s) Office under the previous government.
Meanwhile, a source with knowledge of the present immigration and border control system said that should parliament’s termination decision be upheld, the Immigration Department would be returning to “a pen and paper system” for monitoring arrivals to the country.
The Maldives has come under strong criticism internationally in recent years for the prevalence of people trafficking, and the country has appeared on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for three years in a row.
In a statement to Minivan News, Nexbis Vice President Aziz said that the company was now awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision concerning its appeal hearing on January 9.
“The ACC in the previous Supreme Court hearing submitted that there was no implication on Nexbis or any corruption whatsoever in the contracting state of the Border Control System project,” he said. “The Border Control System is fully implemented and is operational in Male’ International Airport.”
Responding to allegations of wrong-doing in its signing of a border control agreement with the Maldives government, Aziz alleged that “criminal elements supporting human trafficking” had been identified through its “intelligence” as potentially funding a campaign to halt its agreement.
“Stakeholders across the political spectrum have in the recent past all highlighted the growth of human trafficking in the Maldives and pointed out to hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal gains made by the criminal elements behind the growth of human trafficking in the Maldives who stand to lose out the most from the full implementation of the Maldives Immigration Border Control System,” he claimed. “To that end, as the public can clearly see, there is an elaborate amount of money that is being spent to campaign against the Border Control System and the security it will bring to the country.”
Aziz also contended that any attempts to weaken border controls in the country would only serve detrimental to the nation due to not only an “influx of illegal immigrants to the country,” but also the nation’s international standing.
“In addition to this, the Maldives has been on the US State Department’s Tier 2 Watch List for Human Trafficking for three years running now and may possibly be re-classified this year into Tier 3, which is the worst category, if proper controls and systems are not put in place,” he said.
“The implications are far reaching and would again impact the people of Maldives as countries around the world begin imposing stringent visa requirements on Maldivians.”
Aziz said it had become “imperative” for Maldives’ national security that supposed efforts by human traffickers to sabotage its agreement did not succeed.
“The full implementation and operation of the Nexbis BCS will undoubtedly help curb issues of human trafficking, identity fraud as well as weak enforcement controls. The Border Control System encompasses a total end-to-end solution for a Build, Operate, Transfer (BOT) contract term as stipulated by the National Planning Council,” he said.
“This is a proven and internationally certified system, and shall provide the required border control capabilities including foreign worker management and mobile enforcement features, which will increase the efficiency of the current immigration processes. The biometric capabilities of the system are certified to be of the highest performance worldwide for speed and accuracy,” he said.
Immigration Controller Dr Mohamed Ali was not responding to calls at the time of press.
However, a source with knowledge of the current immigration and emigration system – who asked not to be identified – told Minivan News that border control authorities were facing “lots of problems” in performing their function. These problems were said to have arisen due to ongoing wrangling over the Nexbis deal.
While not wishing to comment on Nexbis’ allegations of possible criminal involvement in efforts to halt the project, the source claimed that a failure to implement a BCS like that being offered by the Malaysia-based firm would “strengthen the hand” of human traffickers operating in and out of the country.
The source said that the biometric systems included within Nexbis’ system were a step towards curbing a common practice of returning illegal immigrants – in some cases with criminal convictions – to the Maldives under new identities.
With the Supreme Court yet to decide on the legality of parliament’s decision to terminate the Nexbis agreement, Minivan News understands the company’s BCS is still being used at Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) to screen arrivals.
However, the source said that Nexbis technical staff who had implemented the border system had been removed from the project, meaning that any bugs or issues with the technology were unable to be resolved.
“We need the system to capture biometric details from passengers in cases where people are changing names. This would make it impossible to create false passport under separate names as people are doing right now,” the source said.
The same source also said the automated system would allow authorities to run background checks on passengers on incoming flights.
A decision to uphold parliament’s decision to cancel the Nexbis agreement – a stance the government has said it will honour – would see immigration officials having to use “a pen and paper system” for monitoring immigration, the source claimed.
ACC view
The MVR 500 million (US$39 million) BCS project moved ahead last year after a series of high-profile court battles and delays that led Nexbis to last year threaten legal action against the Maldivian government should it incur losses for the work already done on the project.
The Malaysia-based mobile security provider has come under scrutiny by political parties who claim that the project is detrimental to the state, while the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) has alleged corruption in the bidding process.
Despite Nexbis’ claims that “no implication” of corruption had been registered by the ACC, the corruption commission’s President Hassan Luthfee said his department would only have previously sent a case to the PG’s Office if it held concerns with the agreement.
However, Luthfee also conceded his department had been made aware of issues regarding human trafficking in and out of the country.
“We have received complaints about people smuggling to the country, but we have not been able to start an investigation as the size of such a case is beyond our capacity,” he claimed, adding that the ACC was not tasked to investigate such matters.
“This is just too big a case. [For example] there have been some claims that ships from Sri Lanka and India are travelling to the Maldives around 20 kilometres from Male’ and transferring people to fishing vessels, and from there they are distributed as laborers across the country. These are reports I have received.”
Migrant concerns
Speaking on January 13 at a ceremony to celebrate National Day, President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik stated the Maldives was being “forced” to take measures against changes to the “national character” due to the rising number of migrant workers in the country.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier this month inaugurated an initiative targeted at raising awareness of the human trafficking issue in the Maldives.
The strategy, entitled ‘Blue Ribbon Campaign Against Human Trafficking’ is expected to include activities to try and raise awareness among students and the business community.
The Foreign Ministry announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with multiple local media outlets in the country as part of the campaign’s aim to raising awareness of human trafficking and other related issues.
Meanwhile, late last year, Indian authorities told Minivan News that tightened restrictions on providing medical visas to Maldivians was a “signal” for the country’s government to address a number of concerns about the nation’s treatment of migrant workers.
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Going back to pen and paper will not alert the Immigration Officer to whether the passport he is looking at is fake, stolen or if the traveller is wanted by international agencies for criminal offences.
The reason why legislation of passports was changed to include bio-metric information was to prevent criminal activity. Airlines face massive fines if they transport passengers illegally. To arrive in the UK without the correct documents is an automatic fine of £2000 for the airline, similar fines for europe and the US apply.
If the Maldives doesn't comply with International travel regulations you can be sure airlines will not risk taking passengers who haven't had their passport checked correctly against the system that all countries rely on to protect their borders.
Just another reason why your tourism trade is going to continue heading down hill.
Your first miscalculation was that Maumoon G. was ever the President.
We are corruption at heart. Human trafficking is (him) hiding in plain site. There can be no escape, no. Border's are porous so that escape is facilitated. (Huh?!)
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can u delete That comment Breaking News.. lot of mistakes.
Pls consider this is very Important news to ALL Media…
After NCIT took Immigration Quota System, all Present workers Data cannot seen to Immigration and even Immigration quota system is facing lot of difficulties to Agencies, and even new quota is issuing from new NCIt system and NCIT is requesting to put present workers but instant the system allows every company 5 quota and every time all companies brings new foreign workers from new quota and now present more than 80,000 workers data is not there and even no record in immigration system and even it will bring big Human trafficking Case with in 3 months time.
This is serious issue Present foreigners not seen any data in Immigration and even requesting present foreigners to pay deposit and enter new system and who will do it? and Agencies knows that Immigration lost now data when FA took old system from immigration and Jameel and Azima and ACC President plans to block immigration and all data of foreign employee system was taken to NCIT and NCIT does know hot to play that system..
Ask Agencies they will say now Present workers are not in order no data in immigration and now all companies have 5 quota and other workers 20 to 30 workers in companies without quota and WP
Home Ministry FA & Jameel Plays dirty Games and Telling Human Trafficking now….? Make sense
“The ACC in the previous Supreme Court hearing submitted that there was no implication on Nexbis or any corruption whatsoever in the contracting state of the Border Control System project,” he said. “The Border Control System is fully implemented and is operational in Male’ International Airport.
what this means by ACC..? that means hilmy and ACC Raees have some issues with Nxbis company Jealousy so much damage given to Media by ACC
We had seen lot of issues in Immigration, since the Famous IT head Ibrahim Waheed mention in Raajje TV Border Control Report he was join immigration after Nexbis award the project from Tender Board and this IT ibrahim Waheed and MDP Adam Naseer were studies in Informatics and even actual IT Head was not him and all Immigration techinical team was not seen and not heard from Media and Adam Naseer face to all Media in the Name of IT Head Ibrahim waheed who join Immigration Sep 2010,.
He was actual planner this Border system and when Informatics and malaysian Iris company submitted a project to Ibrahim Waheed while he was studying in Malaysia and he sent to former controller Ilyas but ilyas make and scope big and given to Tender board to look and Tender Board award the project to Nexbis the IT Waheed came Back from Malaysia first he tried to cancel the agreement and shout Nexbis company and went himself and Adam Naseer to Finance Ministry and Finance Ministry never invite them, they went complain them self and it was clear when DB shahid came when they knows it can be cancel by ACC they took Nexbis Tender papers to Informatics and travel to colombo Adam naseer and Ibrahim waheed Hamid together request by DB shahid and after that DB shahid travel alone and done the deal with ACC and Informatics and all this ACC knows and they knows the date these people travel and the deals and ACC is behind this deal to make immigration name spoil in media and so on...
Pls consider this is very Important news to ALL Media…
After NCIT took Immigration Quota System, all Present workers Data cannot seen to Immigration and even Immigration quota system is facing lot of difficulties to Agencies, and even new quota is issuing from new NCIt system and NCIT is requesting to put present workers but instant the system allows every company 5 quota and every time all companies brings new foreign workers from new quota and now present more than 80,000 workers data is not there and even no record in immigration system and even it will bring big Human trafficking Case with in 3 months time.
This is serious issue Present foreigners not seen any data in Immigration and even requesting present foreigners to pay deposit and enter new system and who will do it? and Agencies knows that Immigration lost now data when FA took old system from immigration and Jameel and Azima and ACC President plans to block immigration and all data of foreign employee system was taken to NCIT and NCIT does know how to play that system..
Ask Agencies they will say now Present workers are not in order no data in immigration and now all companies have 5 quota and other workers 20 to 30 workers in companies without quota and WP
Home Ministry FA & Jameel Plays dirty Games and Telling Human Trafficking now….? Make sense
Why don't you try and implement the Nexbis's "biometric DCS" at the departure terminals at Dhaka Airport to start with. All countries getting Bangladeshi expat labourers (incl. Middle East, ASEAN and Maldives) can share the cost of the implementation.
Nexbis is just trying to save its corrupt deal here. The human trafficking problem we have is the easiest thing to solve. You don't need complicated machinery to findout these illegals and their operators. If thhere was the will this ppl smuggling bussiness can be shutdown in a few hours in Male. The agencies who profit from this smuggling are known. And these illegals are simple poor workers 99% of them do not have proper work permits. TheY are not using any cleverness to get themselves in to this country. Just the knowledge that we will do nothing even if caught emboldens them. Its very very simple to solve this. But the problem is everybody making reports and nobody takes action. Every other day one politician or another will say we have this many of illegals and this is a big problem. We all know of this problem and we just want somebody to do something.
Where is courrption? Only media and news paper covers people who want to cancel the project where is immigration and ilyas comment and nexbis comment regarding the issue, we can't trust adam naseer and ibrahim waheed they are people who travel colombo and met lanka informatics and Db shahid is most corrupt person and there are documents leak a deal with ACC and lanka company emails leak from shahid emails and immigration email that he had used... where is courrption?
majlis also only heard from ACC & ACC lawyer Azima must heard from both side...
Check MVexposed.com
You guys can see all documents that ACC deal with DB shahid
In order to achieve the 1 million tourists target, the government needs these "illegal immigrants".
Nexbiz contract should not terminate but rather need to negotiate it bring a common resolution.
Immigration officers and some people who have getting a cut from foreign employees recruitment are trying to sabotage the systems.
Current only visa application system is in deep trouble because officers are trying to make it difficult for the companies and they do not want the online system to function well.
If this system get function properly, then these offers will not be able to get the cuts that they were getting from recruiting agencies in future and it will stop these incomes for the officers.
Uk holiday, just I read this article only comment I notice is online visa system, as far I know immigration officers and some labour officers had done some corrupt deals specially old labour system and buster system immigration used,. But immigration intelligent fail due to inexperience and only fake documents they focus and weakness and corrupt cases they never investigate due to discrimination among staffs. As far I know some cases had been forward police but it was stop or given up.
Online visa system immigration staffs are working very hard as far agencies are saying NCIT not fit or not ready for software to be use yet and they start suddenly.