The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has ordered Thilafushi Corporation Limited (TCL) to halt the dredging of Thilafushi lagoon, because of issues that “could lead” to corruption in its contract with Heavy Load Maldives.
ACC Commissioner Hassan Luthfee told newspaper Haveeru that details of an investigation into TCL’s selection of Heavy Load for the 130 hectare dredging project would be released tomorrow.
Heavy Load was awarded the US$21 million project on September 30 last year, and inaugurated the project on February 4.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also expressed concern over the project, which it claimed had “started work” prior to being issued an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
The EPA’s Director of Environmental Protection and Research, Ibrahim Naeem, confirmed to Minivan News that a license was granted to Heavy Load on Feburary 10, while work started on the Feburary 4th.
He could not clarify if this meant the company had begun actually dredging prior to being issued the license.
“Dredging has a large impact on the environment, which is why licenses are issued to ensure mitigation measures are in place,” he explained.
Heavy Load is a family business interest of ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik, the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s parliamentary group leader.
Speaking from Colombo, Moosa told Minivan News that Heavy Load had spent 2-3 months mobilising resources for the project. The February 4 inugration attended by President Mohamed Nasheed was symbolic, and did not necessarily mean the company had started dredging work, he said.
As for the ACC’s allegations it was, he said, “not a coincidence” that the announcement had been made a day after allegations broke in the Indian press that People’s Alliance (PA) leader Abdulla Yameen – also former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s half-brother – sold blackmarket oil to the Burmese miliary junta.
“There is a part of the ACC that is not free and fair,” Moosa said, alleging that the commission was subject to misuse for political purposes.
“PA’s Deputy Leader [Ahmed] Nazim is very close with one of the commission members, [Abdulla] Hilmy, which needs closer investigation,” Moosa said.
“I am a strong part of this government and I think this is a political trick. I haven’t even been into the Heavy Load office in one and a half months because of my campaigning [in the local council elections]. It is run by my family, my children.
“I had shipping company in 1981 when [former President] Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and his brother-in-law took me to prison and destroyed my business and my life. I spent four years in prison and they have not answered for this,” Moosa contended, questioning why the ACC was not investigating audit reports concerning prominent ministers in the former administration.
Moosa further claimed that Heavy Load had already deployed dredger for the work and was unlikely to halt on the ACC’s orders – “they have to go to the court and provide evidence of corruption,” he said.
In late January the ACC ordered a halt on another government contract, between the Department of Immigration and Malaysian mobile security firm Nexbis, claiming that there were instances where corruption may have occurred.
Facing political pressure ahead of the local council elections, President Mohamed Nasheed upheld the ACC’s request that the roll-out of the technology be postponed.
Nexbis responded that it would be taking legal action against parties in the Maldives, claiming that speculation over corruption was “politically motivated” in nature and had “wrought irreparable damage to Nexbis’ reputation and brand name.”
Moosa told Minivan News that it was unlikely the Heavy Load project would be similarly held: “We are not a foreign company,” he said.
The dredging is part of TCL’s development of a new port catering to 15,000 ton cargo ships and container terminal, on 3.8 million square foot of land. The project is partly intended to free up land currently occupied by the port in Male’, one of the most densely populated cities in the world at over 100,000 people per square kilometre.
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Ripples from the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Tunsian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali have spread to other countries in the region, including Jordan and Algeria.
Mubarak, who was in power for 30 years, finally gave in after weeks of protests and stepped down from the presidency, handing power to an interim military government on Friday.
The revolution has not only affected him politically. On Friday, Swiss authorities announced they were freezing assets belonging to Mubarak and his family, pressuring the UK to do the same. Mubarak is thought to have a personal fortune of US$70 billion stashed across various bank accounts and property holdings all over the world.
That the people of one of the Middle East’s largest, oldest and most populated countries could not only overthrow but seek justice against a 30 year autocracy has sparked a wave of political dissent in the region.
Prior to Mubarak’s departure, several thousand demonstrators clashed with police in Algiers after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ordered a ban on protests. 400 were arrested, and then later released, while five people have been reported killed in the protests since they started in January.
Yesterday, the Algerian government shut down the internet and deployed 30,000 riot police – paralleling Mubarak’s early reaction to the protests in Egypt.
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad did the opposite, unblocking access to the social media websites Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Youtube in an effort to mellow rising discontent, as well as offering US$400 million in fuel subsidies to the poor. Libyian President Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi has earnestly launched a house-building scheme.
In Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as announced he will not stand for a third term and is reportedly to be desperately trying to combat the city’s electricity outages with the installation of three giant generators.
King Abdullah of Jordan sacked the country’s government late last month in a bid to head off a repeat of the Egyptian uprising, announcing a deal with the political opposition sanctioning political and economic reform.
The UK’s Guardian newspaper reported one senior western official as saying “there has been an awakening of political awareness among the young who have been waiting for solutions that have never come and are not really in the menu now. They are saying: ‘Why should we carry on like this?’”
Singaporean police are reportedly investigating former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s half brother Abdulla Yameen for alleged involvement in an international money laundering racket thought to be worth up to US$800 million – if accurate, a staggering 80 percent of the Maldives’ annual GDP.
Yameen is an MP and leader of the People’s Alliance (PA) party, which in coalition with the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), of which Gayoom is the ‘honorary leader’, together maintain a parliamentary majority in the Maldives.
The allegation is central to an explosive piece in India’s The Week magazine by Sumon K Chakrabarti, Chief National Correspondent of CNN-IBN, who describes Yameen as “the kingpin” of a scheme to buy subsidised oil through the State Trading Organisation’s branch in Singapore and sell it on through an entity called ‘Mocom Trading’ to the Burmese military junta, at a black market premium.
“The Maldives receives subsidised oil from OPEC nations, thanks to its 100 percent Sunni Muslim population. The Gayooms bought oil, saying it was for the Maldives, and sold it to Myanmar on the international black market. As Myanmar is facing international sanctions, the junta secretly sold the Burmese and ‘Maldivian’ oil to certain Asian countries, including a wannabe superpower,” alleged Chakrabarti, who is writing a book on Gayoom’s administration and the democracy movement that led to its fall.
“Sources in the Singapore Police said their investigation has confirmed ‘shipping fraud through the diversion of chartered vessels where oil cargo intended for the Maldives was sold on the black market creating a super profit for many years,’” the report added.
Referencing an unnamed Maldivian cabinet Minister, The Week states that: “what is becoming clear is that oil tankers regularly left Singapore for the Maldives, but never arrived here.”
The article draws heavily on an investigation report by international accountancy firm Grant Thorton, commissioned by the Maldives government in March 2010, which obtained three hard drives containing financial information detailing transactions from 2002 to 2008. No digital data was available before 2002, and the paper trail “was hazy”.
According to The Week, Grant Thorton’s report identifies Myanmar businessman and head of the Kanbawza Bank and Kanbawza Football Club, Aung Ko Win, as the middleman acting between the Maldivian connection and Vice-Senior General Maung Aye, the second highest-ranking member of the Burmese junta – one of the world’s most oppressive regimes, perhaps exceeded only by North Korea.
Also allegedly implicated in the Grant Thorton report are Brigader-General Lun Thi, the junta’s Minister of Energy, Aung Thaung, the Burmese Minister of industry, “and his son, Major Pye Aung, who is married to Aye’s daughter, Nander Aye.”
“Another Burmese business couple, Tun Myint Naing (aka ‘Steven Law’) and his wife, were linked to the Gayooms,” alleged The Week.
According to a 2000 report on the Golden Triangle Opium trade by Hong Kong-based regional security analysis firm, Asia Pacific Media Services, “in 1996 Steven Law was refused a visa to the USA on suspicion of involvement in narcotics trafficking”, and several companies linked to him were blacklisted because of his suspected involvement in his father’s drug empire.
His father, Lo Hsing Han, also known as Law Sit Han, is named in the report as a notorious ‘Golden Triangle’ heroin baron turned businessman, with financial ties to Singapore. He was also responsible responsible for arranging a lavish wedding in 2006 for the daughter of Burmese dictator Than Shwe.
“Lo Hsing-han and his family set up the Asia World Company… involved in import-export business, bus transport, housing and hotel construction, a supermarket chain, and Rangoon’s port development,” APMS wrote.
According to The Week report, “Yameen was allegedly aided by Ahmed Muneez, former Managing Director of STO Singapore, and by Mohamed Hussain Maniku, former MD, STO. Maniku was MD from 1993 to 2008, and currently serves as the Maldives’ Ambassador to Washington.
The operation
According to The Week article, the engine of the operation was the Singaporean branch of the government-owned State Trading Organisation (STO), of which Yameen was the board chairman until 2005.
Fuel was purchased by STO Singapore from companies including Shell Eastern Petroleum Pvt Ltd, Singapore Petroleum company and Petronas, and sold mostly to the STO (for Maldivian consumption) and Myanmar, “except in 2002, when the bulk of the revenue came from Malaysia.”
The “first red flag” appeared in an audit report on the STO by KPMG, one of the four major international auditing firms which took over the STO’s audits in 2004 from Price WaterhouseCoopers.
The firm noted: “A company incorporated in Singapore by the name of Mocom Trading Pte Ltd in 2004 has not been discluded under Note No. 30 to the Financial Statements. There was no evidence available with regard to approval of the incorporation. Further, we are unable to establish the volume and the nature of the company with the group.”
In a subsequent report, KMPG noted: “The name of the company has been struck off on 20th April 2006.”
Investigators learned that Mocom Trading was set up in February 2004 as a joint venture between STO Singapore and a Malaysian company called ‘Mocom Corporation Sdn Bhd’, with the purpose of selling oil to Myanmar and an authorised capital of US$1 million.
According to The Week, the company had four shareholders: Kamal Bin Rashid, a Burmese national, two Maldivians: Fathimath Ashan and Sana Mansoor, and a Malaysian man named Raja Abdul Rashid Bin Raja Badiozaman. Badiozaman was the Chief of Intelligence for the Malaysian armed forces for seven years and a 34 year veteran of the military, prior to his retirement in 1995 at the rank of Lieutenant General.
As well as the four shareholders, former Managing Director of STO Singapore Ahmed Muneez served as director. The Week reported that Muneez informed investigators that Mocom Corportation was one of four companies with a tender to sell oil to the Burmese junta, alongside Daewoo, Petrocom Energy and Hyandai.
Under the contract, wrote The Week, “STO Singapore was to supply Mocom Trading with diesel. But since Mocom Corporation held the original contact, the company was entitled to commission of nearly 40 percent of the profits.”
That commission was to be deposited in an United Overseas Bank account in Singapore, “a US dollar account held solely by Rashid. So, the books would show that the commission was being paid to Mocom, but Rashid would pocket it.”
In a second example cited by The Week, investigators discovered that “STO Singapore and Mocom Trading duplicated sales invoices to Myanmar. The invoices showed the number of barrels delivered and the unit price. Both sets of invoices were identical, except for the price per barrel. The unit price on the STO Singapore invoices was US$5 more than the unit price of the Mocom Trading invoice. This was done to confuse auditors.”
As a result, “the sum total of all Mocom Trading invoices to Myanmar Petrochemical Enterprises was US$45,751,423, while the sum total of the invoices raised by STO Singapore was US$51,423,523 – a difference of US$5,672,100.”
Furthermore, “investigators found instances where bills of lading (indicating receipt of consignment) were unsigned by the ship’s master.”
Gayoom's half-brother and PA leader Abdulla Yameen
Money from the Maldives
Despite his officially stepping down from the STO in 2005, The Week referenced the report as saying that debit notes in Singapore “show payments made on account of Yameen in 2007 and 2008.”
Citing the report directly, The Week wrote: “The debit notes were created as a result of receiving funds from Mr Yameen deposited at the STO head office, which were then transferred to STO Singapore’s bank accounts. This corresponded with a document received from STO head office confirming the payments were deposited by Yameen into STO’s bank accounts via cheque.
The Week claimed that Yameen was aided by Muneez on the STO Singapore side, and by Mohamed Hussain Maniku, former STO managing director, on the Maldivian end until 2008.
“In conversation with Mr Muneez, this was to provide monies for the living expenses of his [Yameen’s] son and daughter, both studying in Singapore. Their living expenses were distributed by Mr Muneez,” the Grant Thorton report stated, according to The Week.
In an interview with Minivan News, Yameen confirmed that he had used the STO’s accounts to send money to his children in Singapore, “and I have all the receipts.”
He described the then STO head in Singapore as “a personal friend”, and said “I always paid the STO in advance. It was a legitimate way of avoiding foreign exchange [fees]. The STO was not lending me money.”
He denied sending money following his departure from the organisation: “After I left, I did not do it. In fact I did not do it 3 to4 years before leaving the STO. I used telegraphic transfer.”
Yameen described the wider allegations contained in The Week article as “absolute rubbish”, and denied being under investigation by the Singaporean police saying that he had friends in Singapore who would have informed him if that were the case.
The article, he said, was part of a smear campaign orchestrated by current President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed, a freelance writer and the dismissed Auditor General “now in London”, who he claimed had hired the audit team – “they spent two weeks in the STO in Singapore conducting an investigation.”
Yameen said he did not have a hand in any of the STO’s operations in Singapore, and that if Muneez was managing director at the time of any alleged wrong-doing, “any allegations should carry his name.”
He denied any knowledge or affiliation with Steven Law or Lo Hsing Han, and said that as for Mocom Trading, “if that company is registered, Maniku would know about it.”
Asked to confirm whether the STO Singapore had been supplying fuel to Myanmar during his time as chair of the board, “it could have been – Myanmar, Vietnam, the STO is an entrepreneurial trade organisation. It trades [commodities like] oil, cement, sugar, rice to places in need. It’s perfectly legitimate. “
Asked whether it was appropriate to trade goods to a country ostracised by the international community, Yameen observed that the trading had “nothing to do with the moral high-ground, at least at that time. Even even now the STO buys from one country and sells to those in need.”
Asked why the President would hire a freelance writer to smear his reputation after the local council elections, “that’s because Nasheed would like to hold me in captivity.”
The only way Nasheed could exert political control, Yameen claimed, “was to resort to this kind of political blackmail”.
“Unfortunately he has not been able to do that with me. I was a perfectly clean minister while in Gayoom’s cabinet. They have nothing on me.”
Last time around
No love is lost between Yameen and the present Maldivian administration, which detained him and Jumhoree Party (JP) leader Gasim Ibrahim in early July 2010 on accusations of bribery and, according to the police charge sheet, “attempting to topple the government illegally.”
President Nasheed’s cabinet had resigned en masse the week prior, in protest against what they claimed were the “scorched earth politics” of the opposition-majority parliament, leaving only President Mohamed Nasheed and Vice President Mohamed Waheed Hassan in charge of the country. The move circumvented regulations blocking the arrest of MPs while no-confidence motions were pending against sitting ministers.
Several days later, audio recordings of conversations between several MPs, including Yameen and Gasim, were leaked to the media. The recordings carried implications of vote-buying within parliament, suggestions of collaboration with the officials in the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), and details of a plan to derail the progress of a taxation bill.
Yameen defended the conversation at the time as “not to borrow money to bribe MPs… [rather] As friends, we might help each other.”
The issue quickly became one of invasion of privacy, and the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) issued a statement to that effect.
Unable to get an arrest warrant extension for the pair through the Maldivian courts, the government quickly found itself facing international criticism and diplomatic urging to “stick to the rule of law”, after Yameen was detained by the military on the Presidential Retreat of Aarah purportedly “for his own protection.”
While in custody, Yameen told local media he did not wish to be detained in ‘protective’ custody. The military refused to present him before the court on a court order, raising more international eyebrows.
Later in July, the President’s Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair told Minivan News that the government had felt obliged to take action after six MDP MPs came forward with statements alleging Yameen and Gasim had attempted to bribe them to vote against the government.
The opposition PA-DRP coalition already has a small voting majority, with the addition of supportive independent MPs. However, certain votes require a two-thirds majority of the 77 member chamber – such as a no-confidence motion to impeach the president.
Zuhair told Minivan News at the time that given the severity of the allegations against them, neither could be considered prisoners of conscience.
“I cannot describe these people as political leaders – they are accused of high crimes and plots against the state,” Zuhair said.
“These MPs are two individuals of high net worth – tycoons with vested interests,” he explained. “In pursuing their business interests they became enormously rich during the previous regime, and now they are trying to use their ill-gotten gains to bribe members in the Majlis [parliament] and judiciary to keep themselves in power and above the fray.”
“They were up to all sorts of dark and evil schemes,” Zuhair alleged. “There were plans afoot to topple the government illegally before the interim period was over.”
Yameen was also one of many former and serving Ministers on an audit hit-list issued by Auditor General Ibrahim Naeem, prior to his dismissal on March 29, 2010.
Naeem, who was appointed by former President Gayoom, had produced a damning report detailing the previous government’s spending habits. These, according to an article on the report published in the New York Times, included an estimated “US$9.5 million spent buying and delivering a luxury yacht from Germany for the president, $17 million on renovations of the presidential palace and family houses,a saltwater swimming pool, badminton court, gymnasium, 11 speed boats and 55 cars, including the country’s only Mercedes-Benz.”
“And the list goes on, from Loro Piana suits and trousers to watches and hefty bills for medical services in Singapore for ‘important people and their families. There was a US$70,000 trip to Dubai by the first lady in 2007, a US$20,000 bill for a member of the family of the former president to stay a week at the Grand Hyatt in Singapore. On one occasion, diapers were sent to the islands by airfreight from Britain for Mr Gayoom’s grandson,” wrote the NYT, citing Naeem’s report.
The Maldives government had “begun the paper chase”, the NYT report claimed, “but it lacks the resources to unravel a complex trail that it assumes runs through the British Channel Islands, Singapore and Malaysia.”
On March 24, Naeem sent a list of current and former government ministers to the Prosecutor General, requesting they be prosecuted for failure to declare their assets, citing Article 138 of the Constitution requiring every member of the Cabinet to “annually submit to the Auditor General a statement of all property and monies owned by him, business interests and all assets and liabilities.”
He then held a press conference: “A lot of the government’s money was taken through corrupt [means] and saved in the banks of England, Switzerland, Singapore and Malaysia,” Naeem said, during his first press appearance in eight months.
Five days later he was dismissed by the opposition-majority parliament on allegations of corruption by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), for purportedly using the government’s money to buy a tie and visit Thulhaidhu in Baa Atoll. The motion to dismiss Naeem was put forward by the parliamentary finance committee, chaired by Deputy Speaker and member of Yameen’s PA party Ahmed Nazim, who the previous week had pleaded not guilty to ACC charges of conspiracy to defraud the former ministry of atolls development while he was Managing Director of Namira Engineering and Trading Pvt Ltd.
The parliament has yet to approve a replacement auditor general.
Representatives of the former government have steadfastly denied the existence of stolen funds. Gayoom’s assistant and former chief government spokesperson Mohamed Hussain ‘Mundhu’ Shareef told Minivan News in December 2009 that ”there is no evidence to link Gayoom to corruption”, and urged accusers “to show us the evidence.”
“If you have the details make them public, instead of repeating allegations,” he said at the time. “[Gayoom] has said, ‘go ahead and take a look, and if you find anything make it public.’”
Shareef had not responded to Minivan News at the time of going to press.
President’s member of the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) and whistle-blower Aishath Velezinee has presented documents to the Supreme Court she claims provide evidence that the JSC has forged documents for the hearing over High Court appointments.
The JSC is currently in the Supreme Court defending its appointment of five high court judges – current Juvenile Court Chief Judge Shuaib Hussein Zakariya, former Law Commission member Dr Azmiralda Zahir, Civil Court registrar Abdu Rauf Ibrahim, lawyer of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Abbas Shareef and Civil Court Chief Judge Ali Sameer.
The Supreme Court took over the case from the Civil Court in January, after several judges who were not appointed raised concern that there were policy and legal issues related to the Judicial Service Commission’s (JSC) appointment procedures, such as giving higher priority to appointees on the basis of gender.
The documents concern JSC resolution B1/11/24, passed at the 22nd sitting of JSC on the evening February 6, 2011, informing the Supreme Court that Vice Chair Dr Afrasheem Ali would represent the JSC in the High Court appointments matter.
The resolution carries the signatures of six JSC members, three of whom Velezinee contends were not even present at the meeting of February 6, 2011 when the resolution was supposedly passed.
“The JSC sent a text message calling a meeting on Sunday evening at 7:00pm, and then changed the time to 7:30pm. I was there at 7:00pm, and only four members turned up including myself, Dr Afrasheem Ali, Chief Judge of the High Court Abdul Ghani Mohamed, and Ahmed Rasheed from the law community,” Velezinee says. “I stayed until 8:00pm, to make sure.”
With only four members present, the meeting failed to reach the JSC’s six member quorum.
“The JSC’s regulations state that after a meeting is called, if we do not reach quorum within 15 minutes from the scheduled time, then the meeting is cancelled. On Sunday evening we had no meeting because we didn’t meet quorum with only four members present.”
When Velezinee later requested to see the attendance record for the February she discovered a fifth signature – that of Criminal Court Judge Abdulla Didi – had allegedly been added to the official records.
That still was not enough enough to reach the JSC’s quorum, so Velezinee says she was surprised to see six signatures in the submission to the Supreme Court passing the resolution – including those of Member of the Public Sheikh Shuaib Abdul Rahman and Civil Service Commission member Mohamed Fahmy Hassan, neither of whom attended the meeting on February 6.
Velezinee further claimed to have audio recordings of conversations between the JSC and the two absent members who signed the resolution, arranging for the resolution to be sent out to their homes for them to sign.
“The submission to the Supreme Court very clearly states: ‘this resolution was adopted February 6, on the 22nd sitting of the JSC by majority vote of those members who attended’,” Velezinee said.
Fahmy told Minivan News he had no comment on the matter, while Dr Afrasheem Ali referred Minivan News to the JSC’s media spokesperson, Hassan Zaheen. Zaheen referred Minivan News to the JSC interim Secretary General, Abdul Faththah, also the JSC’s legal representative.
Faththah said that while there “should be quorum”, in time-sensitive matters such as court summons members sometimes had to make decisions outside formal meetings, with the approval of other members.
“This is not a matter so important to take a decision with the discussion of the members,” he said.
JSC members had also previously decided who should attend court hearings, during a meeting of full attendance, he added, “[but] that day the Chair was not in Male’, so members decided instead that the Deputy [Afrasheem] should attend [court],” acknowledging that “they may not have had quorum that time.”
“These kind of things happen with things like court attendance issues, but no other decisions,” he said.
Supreme Court case
“Today was the last hearing before the Supreme Court’s verdict [in the case],” Velezinee said. “I sent two letters, a copy of the attendance sheet and the resolution to all five Supreme Court judges and informed them that it was a forged document.”
“The JSC seems to think there is no procedure to gain a majority. That was exactly what they did with Article 285. But when we are talking about a democracy with laws of transparency and accountability, there are procedures to follow to get a majority – otherwise it becomes mob rule.
“Anyone can run around and intimidate people to get signatures, but that is not how an independent constitutional body such as the Judicial Services commission should be working. if the integrity of the Judicial Services Commission is under question, there is no reason why people should trust the judiciary.”
Velezinee has previously alleged that practices such as “manipulating the agenda, manipulating meeting times, withholding information and trying to manipulate decisions by providing misleading information.”
“This is classic, but this time they have been caught in the act,” she claimed.
The outspoken whistle-blower, who was hospitalised on January 3 after she was stabbed three times in the back in broad daylight on the main tourist street of Male’, expressed frustration with the slow acknowledgement that “the JSC by its actions causing the public to mistrust judges and the judiciary – the JSC is permitting impunity among judges.”
“Nobody from any civilised country would believe you if you said that judges and MPs were lying. Chief judges, high court judges – you expect office bearers to be working in the interest of citizens and the state. But here we have a judiciary that seems to think the whole country is out to attack them. That has happened because we have not established a judiciary according to the constitution.”
All the current sitting judges were, Velezinee said, “hand-picked without due process, often for their personal and political connections. We have all the documents to prove it, but JSC is hiding from it. They say: ‘the constitution says we are an independent commission’. But it’s not what the constitution says, it’s how you act. Why not simply eliminate crime by rewriting the constitution so it says there is no crime in this country?”
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is currently investigating the JSC for embezzling state funds by awarding itself over Rf 500,000 in ‘committee allowances’, contrary to Article 164 of the Constitution.
Velezinee has also requested police investigate JSC President and Supreme Court Justice Adam Mohamed Abdulla, JSC Vice Chair and MP (DRP-PA) DrAfraasheem Ali, Criminal Court Judge Abdulla Didi, Speaker of Parliament (DRP-PA) Abdulla Shahid, former JSC President and interim Supreme Court judge (now removed) Mujuthaaz Fahmy, and Former Civil Service Commission President and current member of Civil Service Commission Dr Mohamed Latheef.
The charges filed included accusations that some MPs were influencing courts and judges “for personal gain and profit”, subverting the rule of law and obstructing the JSC from conducting its constitutional duties, “committing and attempting to commit crimes against the State using JSC and the courts as tools”, and defamation against her “with criminal intent”.
Download the documents presented by Velezinee to the Supreme Court (Dhivehi)
The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has released a statement claiming it has calculated the popular vote in last week’s local council elections as 44% MDP, 40% DRP, based on current available data.
The popular vote reflects the overall political preference of voters, and has not yet been released by the Elections Commission (EC). The MDP said it produced the figures based on data currently published by the EC on its website.
Both parties declared victory and were celebrating this week after the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) won a decisive seat majority in the local council elections, while the MDP won control of major population hubs.
If the MDP’s figures match those of the Elections Commission, when published, they would reflect a major show of faith in the ruling party – the MDP received 25 percent in the 2008 presidential election and 33 percent in the parliamentary election early following year, but there has been no impartial polling of the country’s chaotic political scene since then.
A senior MDP source insisted to Minivan News that the party’s math was sound, subject to available data from the EC.
“A 44 percent result in the local council election would show that MDP has a clear path to the presidential election in 2013,” the source claimed.
Only the preliminary ballot counts are currently available from the EC, and include the multiple votes made by islanders for both atoll and island councils (urban dwellers voted once for city councils). Given the higher population of the urban hubs that almost unanimously swung towards the MDP, the party’s four percent lead on the DRP could well be accurate. This would have to be offset against the (anecdotally) lower voter turnout in urban areas, as compared to islands – again, the EC has yet to publish the figures – and the split opposition vote in many areas due to multiple factions of the DRP competing for the same seat, sometimes on an independent ticket.
Vice President of the Elections Commission Ahmed Hassan Fayaz told Minivan News that the current Elections Commission results available were on the its website, and that ”other results have nothing to do with the EC’s results.”
The MDP statement also noted that the current results indicated that the Dhivehi Quamee Party (DQP) – the DRP’s new coalition partner as of yesterday – had won a single seat, and that leader Dr Hassan Saeed had failed to secure a seat in his home atoll, Addu.
The MDP also criticised the performance of its own coalition partner Adhaalath, claiming that its securing of 17 seats and control of just one council (Kinolhas), showed that “Maldivians will not accept the use of religion as a political weapon.”
Adhaalath Party Leader Sheikh Hussain Rasheed earlier this week praised his party’s performance, stating that “we believe that success is for to whom God grants it. And we believe that we can only serve the citizens to the extent the citizens wish us to.”
Polling benefits aside, the new layer of government introduced by the elections will cost the Maldives over US$220,000 per month.
The President of every island council will receive a salary and allowance of Rf 15,000 (US$1160), council members Rf 11,000 (US$850). The mayor of Male’ will receive Rf 45,000 (US$3500).
In addition to salaries, explained acting Finance Minister Mahmoud Razee, parliament has allocated a further Rf200 million (US$15.5 million) to office expenses – at a time when the country has a double-figure deficit, a crippling foreign exchange shortage and complete reliance on a single industry. The government has said this will come out of its existing office budget.
The Maldives’ economy could be crippled by rising oil prices sooner than expected, after a leaked cable from the US embassy in Riyadh sparked fears that Saudi Arabian oil reserves could be 40 percent lower than previous estimates.
In the cable dated November 2007, geologist and former head of exploration at Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant Aramco told US consul general John Kincannon that the world’s largest oil company may have overstated its reserves by 300 billion barrels.
Saudi Arabia is believed to sit on almost a quarter of the world’s oil reserves, the export of which directly accounts for almost 50 percent of country’s GDP and indirectly for much of the rest of its industry.
In 2007, Aramco reported that it had 716 billion barrels of total reserves, 51 percent of which was recoverable. Within 20 years the company predicted it would have 900 million barrels, and a recovery rate of 70 percent.
“Al-Husseini disagrees with this analysis, as he believes that Aramco’s reserves are overstated by as much as 300 billion [barrels] of ‘speculative resources’,” the cable reads.
“In al-Husseini’s view, once 50 percent depletion of original proven reserves has been reached and the 180 billion [barrel] threshold crossed, a slow but steady output decline will ensue and no amount of effort will be able to stop it. By al-Husseini’s calculations, approximately 116 billion barrels of oil have been produced by Saudi Arabia, meaning only 64 billion barrels remain before reaching this crucial point of inflection. At 12 million [barrels per day] production, this inflection point will arrive in 14 years.”
Al-Husseini was on Aramco’s board of directors from 1986 until 2004, and sat on the company’s Board of Directors from 1996 to 2004. He was, states the cable, “no doomsday theorist. His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered.”
A decline in the rate of oil production at a time when demand continues to surge, particularly in the developing world, will cause the oil price to skyrocket.
The Maldivian economy is dependent on oil to such an extent that is spends a quarter of its GDP on it – US$245 million – mostly marine diesel. The 15 percent increase in oil prices over the past five months has led to the Maldives spending almost US$100,000 more on fossil fuels, per day.
Recent turmoil in Egypt – home to the Suez canal, one of the world’s major oil routes which sees 3 million barrels pass through daily – has seen oil prices jump twice past the US$100 a barrel mark in the last few weeks.
Were that price to eventually stick, due to either ongoing Middle East instability or concerns over supply such as those cited in the Riyadh leak, then the Maldives could end up spending upwards of US$230,000 a day on fuel when accounting for possible economic growth of about eight percent during 2011.
Opposition Deputy Leader and Spokesperson Ibrahim ‘Mavota’ Shareef has confirmed that while the voice in an audio clip leaked yesterday was his, parts of the conversation had been edited.
During the conversation Shareef questions the support for former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in Addu, and suggested that were Gayoom’s faction to campaign there, “we will beat them up and drag them away [from Addu].”
That led to a crowd gathering outside the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) headquarters calling for the resignation of Shareef and Leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali. When Shareef confronted the crowd he was attacked, and escorted to safety by police.
The source of the leaked phone call, which was aired on MNBC and DhiFM, has not been identified. However Shareef told Haveeru that the recording was engineered by mixing parts of a conversation he had with several different people, after dismissed Deputy Leader Umar Naseer “created conflicts by attending our function.”
“We were have conversations with several people. A group of people recorded such a conversation and leaked it,” he told Haveeru. “The part of the leaked audio, in which I was saying ‘Gayoom cannot go to Addu to campaign’, was edited. I never said it directly.”
Shareef and Thasmeen were not responding to calls at time of press.
Spokesperson for Gayoom Hussein ‘Mundhu’ Shareef was quoted in Haveeru as saying that Mavota Shareef owed an apology to the former President: “Maumoon holds the most honorary position in the DRP and is linked to many people’s spirit. So no-one can make a comment in order to tarnish the reputation of Maumoon,” Haveeru reported Mundhu as saying.
The protests in Egypt against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak have been reignited following the release from police custody of Wael Ghonim, an online activist and key organiser of the demonstrations.
Ghonim, who is also Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, wept openly on Dream TV and gave an emotional interview that has reinvigorated anti-government protests in Cairo.
The search giant had earlier appealed for public help in locating the missing executive, who disappeared on January 27 and was adopted by many protesters as a symbolic leader.
When he was told about the deaths of 300 people who died during the demonstrations, he cried – “We didn’t do anything wrong. We did what our consciences dictated to us”, he said.
Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators filled the central square of Cairo while marches erupted in cities across the country.
“I like to call it the Facebook Revolution, but after seeing the people right now, I would say this is the Egyptian people’s revolution. It’s amazing,” Ghonim was reported as saying, after he was mobbed by galvanised supporters.
“Egyptians deserve a better life. Today one of those dreams has actually come true, which is actually putting all of us together and as one hand believing in something,” he said.
Prior to Ghonim’s release foreign media present in Egypt had reported a drop in momentum following 12 days of unprecedented demonstrations, with the UK’s Independent newspaper writing that Mubarak was using “all the guile that has kept him in power for so long to produce a series of sweeteners – including a 15 per cent pay rise for state employees – to widen his public support.”
The United States meanwhile backed Mubarak’s perferred successor, recently appointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman, as the country’s transitional leader in a bid to encourage President Hosni Mubarak to step aside.
Suleiman was appointed to the position by Mubarak following the sacking of his entire cabinet. Columnist Lisa Hajjar writes for Al-Jazeera that Egypt’s intelligence has CIA links and has “long been favoured by the US government for his ardent anti-Islamism [and] his willingness to talk and act tough on Iran.”
“There are forces in any society, particularly one facing these kind of challenges, that will try to derail or overtake the process to pursue their own agenda,” said US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, “which is why I think it’s important to follow the transition process announced by the Egyptian government, actually headed by vice-president Omar Suleiman.”
The US appears anxious that Egypt avoid the fate of Iran, which replaced a US-backed dictatorial regime with an unpredictable Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the Iranian revolution in 1979. Egypt is central to the region and an unstable Egypt would have a knock-on effect on world oil prices.
Media in Egypt have reported that one group likely to benefit from the fall of Mubarak is the Muslim Brotherhood, founded by Hassan al-Banna 1928 in opposition to the British presence in Egypt.
“Six Egyptian workers employed in the military camps of Ismailiyya in the Suez Canal Zone visited Banna, a young teacher who they had heard preaching in mosques and cafes on the need for ‘Islamic renewal’,” writes the Guardian’s Jack Shenker, in a rare interview with the group.
“‘Arabs and Muslims have no status and no dignity,’ they complained, according to the brotherhood’s official history. ‘They are no more than mere hirelings belonging to the foreigners… We are unable to perceive the road to action as you perceive it…’
Banna later wrote that the Europeans had expropriated the resources of Muslim lands and corrupted them with ‘murderous germs’: ‘They imported their half-naked women into these regions, together with their liquors, their theatres, their dance halls, their amusements, their stories, their newspapers, their novels, their whims, their silly games, and their vices… The day must come when the castles of this materialistic civilisation will be laid low upon the heads of their inhabitants.’
Banna argued that Islam provided a complete solution, with divine guidance on everything from worship and spiritual matters to the law, politics and social organisation. He established an evening school for the working classes which impressed the general inspector of education and by 1931 the brotherhood had constructed its first mosque – for which the Suez Canal Company is said to have provided some of the funds.”
The BBC reported that a senior Hamas commander from Gaza, Ayman Nofel, used the chaos to escape his three year detention in Egypt on unspecified charges.
“I shouted to other prisoners to break down the doors and gates,” Nofel told the BBC, who used smuggled mobile phones to mobilise local residents outside the jail to storm the prison gates and allow him to fight his way through guards to freedom.
Mubarak’s position continues to weaken, after the state-controlled Al-Ahram newspaper, Egypt’s second oldest, abandoned its support for his regime with a front page lead hailing the “nobility” of the “revolution”.
The state and all its denizens, the elder generation, the politicians and all other powers on the political stage must humble themselves and rein themselves in to understand the ambitions of the young and the dreams of this nation,” wrote editor Osama Saraya.
Even if Mubarak were to be ousted in similar fashion to his Tunisian counterpart Ben Ali, he is unlikely to go hungry – an analysis by Middle East experts published by the Guardian pegs the Egyptian President’s private wealth at US$70 billion, making him among the wealthiest people on the planet. Much of this money is reported to stashed in British and Swiss bank accounts or tied up in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles and acres of Red Sea coast.
Meanwhile, the effect of Egyptian unrest has been felt across the region. Last week Yemeni leader of 30 years Ali Abdullah Saleh promised he would halt constitutional changes that would allow him to be president for life promised not to seek reelection, after civil society groups promised “a day of rage”.
“I will not extend my mandate and I am against hereditary rule,” Saleh said during an emergency session of parliament.
Libyan President of 42 years, Muammar al-Gaddafi, is said to be moving towards transitioning his country back to the monarchy he overthrew in a 1969 coup.
“He’s started to return property, which belonged to the late King Idris, back to the designated heirs of the king,” noted president of the International Strategic Studies Association, Greg Copley.
Tunisia, which started the domino trend after protests forced Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee, has been forced to call up army reservists to confront growing unrest and meet demand for democratic reforms.
Former conscripts and retired soldiers were ordered to report to military posts according to the local news agency TAP.
Gaza is meanwhile facing acute shortages of fuel and supplies as the traffic of goods through underground tunnels crossing the border to Egypt has dried up. Petrol and diesel brought in from Israel costs three times as much as that smuggled into the country, which relies on it for power during extend cuts.
The Maldives is unlikely to escape unscathed either – the country spends 25 percent of its GDP on fuel and its economy, one of the most sensitive in the world, is likely to be susceptible to even minor price fluctuations.
A crowd gathered outside DRP headquarters was this morning calling for the resignation of Party Leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali and Spokesperson Ibrahim ‘Mavota’ Shareef.
The call came in response to an audio clip allegedly of Shareef, aired on MNBC and DhiFM, in which he apparently expresses a preference for MDP over former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Gayoom would never leave if returned to the leadership, Shareef apparently says, during a campaign trip in Addu.
Minivan News is trying to determine the authenticity of the audio with Shareef, however his phone was turned off at time of press. Thasmeen was not responding.
Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam confirmed that a crowd gathered outside the DRP headquarters had tried to attack Shareef, “so police put him into a vehicle and took him to a safe area. He is not in police custody.”
Haveeru reports that Thasmeen and the DRP council will meet at the office shortly, however it notes that Gayoom’s members on the council – his daughter Dhunya Maumoon and former Attorney General Aishath Azima Shukoor – did not appear to be in attendance.
The DRP underwent a major factional split following the dismissal of Deputy Leader Umar Naseer by the party’s disciplinary committee, an incident which came to blows in December 2010 when Naseer and his supporters gatecrashed a DRP rally at Ghiyasuddin International School celebrating the departure of seven of President Mohamed Nasheed’s cabinet ministers on a successfully-prosecuted constitutional technicality.
Naseer claims he does not recognise his removal from the party as legitimate despite confirmation from the Elections Commission. The return of Gayoom to politics and the backing of the party’s ‘honorary leader’ consolidated support for Naseer in the party, and the two campaigned together during the local council election while Thasmeen campaigned seperately.
This mornings’s events suggest the frosty civility between the two factions in the lead-up to the election may be diminishing, as the fielding of multiple opposition candidates in many council electorates may have split the votes and needlessly handed wins to the ruling party.
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