President Mohamed Nasheed has sent letters to Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MPs Ahmed Rasheed, Mohamed Musthafa and Shifaq Mufeeq, requesting they clarify corruption allegations made recently against the government.
According to the President’s Office, the Nasheed requested the MPs send details and evidence related to the corruption allegations as soon as possible, and urged their cooperation.
Mustafa told Minivan News that he had received the letter sent by the President and that he would share all the information he had, as requested by the president.
‘’These corruption allegations have become a national issue and the President is obliged to investigate it,’’ Mustafa said. ‘’I believe that when the president makes a request, we are obliged to share whatever information he wishes. There are many corruption allegations against senior officials of MDP and some serious allegations that we cannot share with the media right now,’’ he claimed.
“We will be sharing this information later,” he said, adding that he would reply to the president’s letter.
Several MDP MPs have recently alleged in parliament that there were corruption allegations in the government and that these should be investigated and stopped.
On November 21 during a debate in parliament MDP MP Shifag accused MDP Chairperson and MP ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik of corruption.
He claimed that excavators sent by Moosa’s Heavy Load Company to the SAARC Summit preparations were not usable, but that Moosa was paid millions of rufiya in lease payments for the excavators that he was not entitled to receive.
MDP MP Ahmed Rasheed claimed that same day in parliament that there was corruption in the government to a level that was ”concerning and dangerous.”
Ahmed Rasheed was not in town and was not available for a comment, while Shifag was in a committee meeting and was unavailable for a comment.
Moosa also said he was in a meeting and was unable to comment.
Last week Transparency International revealed that the Maldives had risen slightly to rank 134 in the organisation’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI).
The country scored 2.5 on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean), placing it alongside Lebanon, Pakistan and Sierra Leone.
The score however is a mild improvement on 2010, when the Maldives was ranked 143th and below Zimbabwe. The Maldives still rated as having higher perceived corruption than many regional neighbours, including Sri Lanka (86), Bangladesh (120) and India (95).
Project Director of Transparency Maldives, Aiman Rasheed, warned that the ranking could not be compared year-to-year, especially in the Maldives where there were only a three sources used to determine the index (India has six).
“Corruption in the Maldives is grand corruption, unlike neighbouring countries where much of it is petty corruption,” Rasheed said. “In the Maldives there is corruption across the judiciary, parliament and members of the executive, all of it interlinked, and a systemic failure of the systems in place to address this. That why we score so low.”
Faced with such endemic and high-level corruption, it was “up to the people of the Maldives to demand better governance”, he said.
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if the president is serious about fighting corruption then he should first kick Reeko Moosa from his party & charge him for corruption...
A clear warning for the 3 MPs.
The President would never be serious about fighting corruption. No President really would in a country such as ours. It is the job of the Anticorruption Commission to investigate and report on corruption. It is the mandate of the Prosecutor-Generals Office to take investigated matters through the courts. It is the responsibility of the courts to follow established procedures in deciding cases of corruption.
It would be too utopian to expect all of these processes to go along smoothly but pretending that the executive can be its own watchdog is sheer madness.
I for one am not one of the mindless zombies baying for Moosa Maniks blood. It is clear that Mohamed Nasheed plans to fob off all the governments problems on Moosa. This is a cheap parlor trick to distract attention from Nasheed himself and his facilitation of every little act of corruption taking place in our society.
The justice system needs to make an exmaple of someone quickly. As long as everyone is seen to get away with corruption without penalty, the status quo will remain.
We need a high profile case to be brought infront of the courts and proper justice must be seen to happen. The President must take personal responsibility if members of his party are involved and should leave no stone unturned to bring the perpetrators to justice.
As ever, a fully functioning judicial system as well as a capable media (who can covertly expose corrupt officials) is the best defence against corruption.
High time the public should send a letter to the government to clarify any corruption and inhuman activities by the previous government. After all that is what the government sold to get the seat.
The Anti Corruption Commission is a joke.
There is daylight robbery which is completely legit such as the giving away of our international airport to gmr and Gulhifalhu to tamil born raj maniwarans company. Both decisions made by government and did agreements from which maldivians only stand to loose to the gain of the foreigners.
But we are all so concerned about Reeko Moosa, Musthafa and others simply because we only read everything at face value and are concerned only about the drama and not hard facts.
What benefit did maldivians get by giving away two prime locations (Gulhifalhu and airport) both located in greater male area to the hands of foreigners!
Fact remains gmr is charging maldivians an obscene charge of $25 per passenger and Gulhifalhu leasing land at mrf3 per sqft when Thilafushi previously charged 25 laari, and airport was free for maldivians even when developments took place.
corruption in maldives is viewed as opportunistic, smart and sometimes cool..public lobby especially the media fail to highlight that it is disgraceful and put pressure on the people doing it.
this is a country where people in high positions never resign even if they mess up things..there is no accountablity.
we need public governence in this country not just corporate governence