Author: Ahmed Nazeer

Gang robs elderly man of Rf 200,000

A group of four men have robbed an elderly man of Rf 200,000 (US$13,000) while he was on his way to deposit the money in the bank.

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam confirmed incident and said police were investigating the case.

‘’The elderly man suffered minor injuries in the incident,’’ Shiyam said, but would not give further details.

According to local newspaper Haveeru, the man was robbed as he walked out from a café inside the Alimas Carnival area.

The paper quoted a witness as saying that as the elderly man walked out, four men on two motorbikes were waiting for him and forced him to give the money to them.

He told the paper that the assailants left a box cutter blade and a sandal in the area as they fled away.

Meanwhile, the Indian High Commission has put up a notice on the High Commission Office notice board informing all Indian citizens residing in the Maldives to take “precautionary measures” while walking in the streets of Male’, and to avoid wearing jewelry.

The High Indian High Commission noted that there were increasing reports of snatch-and-grab incidents lately.

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Attorney General accuses Gahdhoo Court of misleading the public

The Attorney General’s Office has accused Gahdhoo Island Court of misleading the public, after the Court summoned the AG and threatened to hold him in contempt of court if he failed to appear.

The judge had requested the AG’s Office send a representative to appear in an ongoing trial of a case concerning the government.

In a statement, the AG’s Office said that the case Gahdhoo Island Court was referring to was a suit related to the Pension Administration Office, which had its own legal authority to both file suits and respond to legal summons. The government was not required to send representatives from the AG’s Office, it said.

The AG’s Office further claimed said that the Gahdhoo Island Court had not examined the suit in as much detail as it was obliged to do legally, and had mistakenly registered the suit as against the government rather than the Pension Administration Office.

According to the statement, the AG Office had not received any summons chit from the court besides the one sent yesterday, and that there was no reason for the Prosecutor General to take action against the AG.

The AG Office accused Gahdhoo Island Court of phoning media outlets and telling them that the Attorney General was in contempt of court.

Gahdhoo Island Court yesterday sent a summons chit to Attorney General Abdulla Muiz, requesting he produce himself to the island court.

According to the local media, the Gahdhoo Court Judge decided to summon Muiz after the AG’s Office did not send a representative from the AG in a case involving the office.

The judge claimed that the AG was guilty of contempt of court and requested the Prosecutor General to take action against him, and said that no exemption would be made if Muiz defied the summons.

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Adhaalath members on Vaikaradhu protest arrival of President

Four islanders from Vaikaradhu in Haa Dhaalu Atoll yesterday protested the arrival of the President for an official visit.

Chair of Vaikaradhoo Council Ahmed Waheed told Minivan News that the protesters were members of the Adhaalath Party.

”They are four members of Adhaalath Party branch in this island,” Waheed said. ”They were holding banners and raising their voice against the government, and saying they would not support a government that supports Israel.”

”They were on the harbour when the President arrived,” he said. ”They were standing quite close to the president, but the president did not do or say anything.”

Council member Abdulla Shareef told Minivan News that the few people gathered to express disapproval were senior officials of the Adhaalath Wing on the island.

”There are not many supporters of Adhaalath Party on this island, and even in their party there were some people that did not want to join that protest yesterday,” he said.

President of Adhaalath’s Vaikaradhoo Branch Ahmed Shareef told Minivan News that the gathering was not organised by the Adhaalath Party.

”The Adhaalath Party did not organise the gathering,” Shareef said. ”We requested the council give us permission to put up two banners, one about the massive protest on December 23 and the other banner calling for the Maldives to be cleaned of idols.”

He said the banners were put up with the permission for the President’s arrival.

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Parliament schedules decision to reappoint Islamic Minister

Parliament has scheduled the decision on whether to reappoint Islamic Minister Dr Abdul Majeed Abdul Bari for the 19th of this month.

Bari was appointed to the position on October 9 by parliament for the third time. The last time he resigned following a request made by the Adhaalath Party after it severed its coalition agreement with the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).

Dr Bari was first appointed to the government under the coalition agreement.

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Gahdhoo Island Court orders AG to appear

Gahdhoo Court on the island of Gahdhoo in Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll sent a summons chit to Attorney General Abdulla Muiz, requesting that he produce himself to the island court.

According to the local media, the Gahdhoo Court Judge decided to summon Muiz after the AG’s Office did not send a representative from the AG in a case involving the office.

The judge claimed that AG Muiz was been guilty of contempt of court and requested the Prosecutor General to take action against him, and said that no exemption would be made if Muiz defied the summons.

The court has the authority sentence a person to up to three months for contempt of court.

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Reeko Moosa calls on Criminal Court to expedite corruption cases

Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Chairperson and MP ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik has met with Chief Judge of the Criminal Court Abdulla Mohamed and urged him to conclude an ongoing corruption suit against Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ahmed Nazim.

Moosa said that the suits had been sitting in the court for almost three years but none of them had yet been concluded, which he said was a concern as cases against particular people took longer than others.

Nazim is facing multiple counts of conspiracy to defraud the former Atolls Ministry. The fraudulent purchases of harbour lights, national flags and mosque sound systems were first flagged in an audit report released in early 2009. During the hearings, police exhibited numerous quotations, agreements, tender documents, receipts, bank statements and forged cheques suggesting that Nazim received over US$400,000 in the alleged scam.

The Criminal Court in August refused to allow journalists to observe a hearing in Nazim’s ongoing corruption trial, in a move condemned by the Maldives Media Council (MMC).

Speaking to the press after yesterday’s meeting, Moosa said that his motivation was to urge Judge Abdulla Mohamed to expedite cases going on in the Criminal Court.

Moosa told the press that Judge Abdulla Mohamed told him that out of all the cases currently against Nazim, one of them will be concluded in a month at the most, according to MDP Official website.

Last Thursday Moosa and Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Ali Azim went to the Criminal Court and met with the Chief Judge regarding the same matter, a series of meetings that Moosa said would continue.

Local media today reported that Moosa and Azim went to the court to meet the Chief Judge but he was on vacation, and another Judge met with them instead.

Newspaper Haveeru reported Moosa as telling the press that the court had accused him of obstructing its duty.

The Criminal Court recently concluded a case against Moosa, a corruption case against Indpendent MP Abdul Hameed, and a case against MP Azim.

On March 2010, State Prosecutor Abdullah Rabiu said Nazim was managing Director of Namira Engineering and Trading Pvt Ltd when the company’s equipment and staff were used to create fake letterheads and submit proposals on behalf of unregistered companies.

One of the paper companies won a bid worth US$110,000 to provide 15,000 national flags for the former atolls ministry.

If found guilty, the MP for Meemu Atoll Dhiggaru and former vice-president of the opposition People’s Alliance will be ordered to pay Rf1.4 million (US$108,900) to the state and sentenced to between one to six years of imprisonment.

August 2009, Chief Inspector Ismail Atheef said police had uncovered evidence that implicated former Atolls Minister Abdullah Hameed, Eydhafushi MP Ahmed “Redwave” Saleem, former director of finance at the ministry, and Nazim in fraudulent transactions worth over US$260,000 (Mrf 3,446,950).

A hard disk seized during a raid of Nazim’s office in May allegedly contained copies of forged documents and bogus letter heads.

Police further alleged that MP Saleem actively assisted the scam in his then-position as director of finance at the ministry, while Nazim’s wife Zeenath Abdullah had abused her position as a manager of the Bank of Maldives’ Villingili branch to deposit proceeds of the fraudulent conspiracy.

Police said Hameed, brother of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, played a key role in the fraud by handing out bids without public announcements, making advance payments using cheques against the state asset and finance regulations, approving bid documents for unregistered companies and discriminatory treatment of bid applicants.

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President sends letters to three MDP MPs requesting “clarification” of corruption allegations against government

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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Religious NGOs to hold “protest to protect Islam” on December 23

A coalition of religious NGOs have claimed that 100,000 people will join a protest in December “to protect Islam”, and called on “all Maldivians to take part”.

Speaking to the press at the Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation (MNBC) studio, President of the NGO Coalition Mohamed Didi said that more than 127 local NGOs, music clubs, political parties and Island Councils would take part in the protest on December 23.

According to MNBC, Didi said the protest was not a movement against the government but a movement “against all un-Islamic ideas.”

Opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Deputy Leader Ibrahim ‘Mavota’ Shareef warned that “our faith will not be shaken by something someone says, but because of these things it might turn the non-muslims living in neighboring countries against us.’’

MNBC reported that the People’s Alliance Party (PA) had called on parents to bring children to the gathering.

Local newspaper Sun quoted Didi as saying that the government had been conducting many activities with the motive of erasing Islam from the country, and claimed that the NGO coalition was “left with no other choice but to protest to protect Islam.”

Senior officials from the Adhaalath Party, Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) and Jumhoree Party (JP) were present at today’s meeting.

Claims that national monuments placed in Addu for the SAARC Summit were idolatrous and hostility towards a call by UN Human Rights Ambassador Navi Pillay for a national debate on flogging sparked protests in Male’ recently.

“This practice constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women, and should have no place in the legal framework of a democratic country,” Pillay said, referring to the practice of flogging a punishment for fornication.

Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair did not respond to Minivan News at time of press.

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Auditor General report claims Heavy Load project violated state finance regulation

The Auditor General has published an audit report on the Kumundhoo Harbor Project that was contracted to Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Chairperson ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik’s Heavy Load company by the Housing Ministry.

The Auditor General in his report noted that the work was assigned to Heavy Load in violation of article 8.25 of the State Finance Regulation.

‘’Article 8.25 of the Finance Regulation states that any work that costs more than Rf1.5 million (US$100,000) should be assigned to a party by the Tender Evaluation Board in an open bid, and that the interested parties should submit details of the work,’’ Auditor General said in the report. ‘’But the Kumundhoo Harbor Project was not assigned to the party accordingly.’’

According to the report, the project that was supposed to be finished in six months was finished in 31 months, and the government had to pay Rf 22.2 Million for a project originally budgeted at Rf 10.3 million project.

The project was assigned to Heavy Load on 21 November 2007, but the physical work of the project was started on 10 March 2008, according to the audit report.

While the project was going on, Heavy Load reported to the government that there were hard areas that excavators could not dig and the work came to a halt. The ministry then inspected the area and found that the area required explosives to continue the project.

‘’It is to be noted that hard areas can be identified with a diving inspection and that this type of inspection was not done before the work started,’’ the Auditor General said in the report.

The Auditor General’s report said that Rf 4.7 million (US$307,000) was paid to Heavy Load for the days they had to wait without work in return for keeping their equipment and staff on the island, adding that all the days that the party was paid for ‘Idle Time’ could not be considered as such because there was other work the contractor could have been completing.

Heavy Load was paid different rates for the time the company had to wait without work, the Auditor General’s report said. The ministry’s determined rate was Rf23845.77 based on the total amount of the project.

‘’But for the 49 days the contractor had to wait without work from 12 June 2008 to 30 July 2008, Heavy Load was paid Rf27,197.80 per day and for the days between 19 September 2008 and 18 October 2008 the contractor was paid Rf24,299.33,’’ the Audit Report said, adding that the contractor received extra Rf 177,856.17 in total.

The Auditor General also noted that the contractor was given an extra 195 days to complete the project after failing to complete it by the original due date, but after the 195 days only 45 percent of the work was completed.

According to the ‘Appendix to Tender’ agreement made between the ministry and contractor, if the contractor failed to complete the project in the time allocated, the contractor was to be fined 0.1 percent of the total cost of the project for each day.

‘’But after the contractor failed to finish the project, it was given extra five months without any fines,’’ the Audit Report noted. ‘’While the government had paid the contractor Rf 4.7 Million to recover any losses contractor might suffer for idle time, the contractor was not fined for the days the project was delayed due to the contractor’s negligence. The government had not cited the loss for the government and islanders of Kumundhoo, and all the benefit was given to the contractor.’’

The Auditor General also noted that an advance payment was paid to the contractor in violation to the Finance Regulation.

‘’The Finance Regulation article 8.23 states that the highest amount that can be paid in advance is 15 percent of the total cost of the project, but the contractor was paid Rf 5 Million which is 38 percent of the total cost of the project,’’ the Audit Report noted.

The Auditor General’s report said that the Auditor General’s Office did not receive the ‘Defects Liabilities Inspection Report’ done by the ministry.

The contractor was told many times to correct issues and not to continue work without correcting them, but the contractor had not acted as instructed and finished the harbor and handed it to the ministry, and the ministry had fully paid the contractor, the Auditor General noted.

The report also noted that the harbor was completed with a lot of faults, and that huge damages had been caused to some boats that had entered the harbor.

Minivan News attempted to contact Reeko Moosa for comment, but his phone was switched off at time of press.

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