The newly-formed Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) held its first major political rally last night with a large number of supporters at artificial beach in Male’, vowing to “enter the presidential palace” in the 2013 presidential election.
Following the completion of the registration process with the Elections Commission (EC) on Sunday and pending verification of over 10,000 membership forms, PPM becomes the third largest party in the Maldives with 13,000 members.
As of October 30, 2011, the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has 47,904 members, followed by opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) with 35,260 and religious conservative Adhaalath Party with 6,140 members.
Speaking at last night’s rally, PPM Registrar Dr Mohamed Saud said the party submitted 13,000 membership forms in 55 days, with the number expected to reach 30,000 by the end of the year.
Dr Saud claimed PPM’s membership would reach over 60,000 in the next six months before its inaugural national congress.
Vili-Maafanu MP Ahmed Nihan told supporters that the new party was “the English version of [first Maldivian President] Mohamed Ameen’s party.”
MP Abdulla Yameen, who has announced his intention to contest the party’s presidential primary, meanwhile said the executive was attempting to grab all powers of the state, accusing the current administration of being incapable of governing under a lawful and democratic system without street activism and “intimidation” of state institutions such as the judiciary.
“I would like to tell the Supreme Court, other courts and independent institutions on behalf of the beloved and honourable PPM members in attendance here, we will definitely be the watchers between you and MDP’s activism,” he said. “We will not allow any harm to come you.”
Yameen also claimed senior leaders of the MDP government were “drenched in the blood of the martyrs” of the November 3, 1988 coup attempt with mercenaries from Sri Lanka.
The High Court last night upheld the Criminal Court’s guilty verdict against Independent MP Ismail Abdul Hameed for corruption and abuse of authority as former director of waste management at the Male’ municipality.
Under article 73(c)(3) of the constitution, MPs found guilty of a criminal offence “and sentenced to a term of more than twelve months” would be stripped of their seat.
Hameed was accused of abused of authority to financially benefit a Singaporean company named Island Logistics in a deal to purchase a barge.
In the verdict delivered on August 29, Criminal Court Judge Abdulla Didi noted that the agreement stipulated the barge was to be delivered within 90 days of signing the agreement, upon which 50 percent of the value was to be paid to Island Logistics.
Although the barge arrived in the Maldives on October 23, 2008, Hameed had signed a a protocol of delivery and acceptance of the vessel on April 28, 2008.
The judge ruled that Hameed’s actions were intentional and in violation of the Anti-Corruption Act.
The High Court judges ruled unanimously last night that there were no grounds to overturn the guilty verdict.
A journalist at the Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation (MNBC) has claimed that Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) MP Ahmed Mahlouf assaulted him after Tuesday’s night live coverage of the National Security Committee meeting.
”He came towards me while I was waiting in the corridor and asked me rudely why I was broadcasting the parliament live” said the MNBC reporter, who wished to remain anonymous. ”I said that decision was not up to me and he told me to inform all my superiors that any equipment brought inside the parliament will be destroyed.”
He said the Galolhu South MP then pushed him against the wall and elbowed him on the stomach.
”I told him to get off me, but he then again hit me in the chest,” he said. ”Then he left the area.”
Board members of the state broadcaster were considering reporting the case to police, he said.
Mahlouf however denies the allegations.
An MNBC journalist at the committee meeting suggested that the incident would have been caught on CCTV cameras inside the building.
Prior to the alleged assault, opposition MPs disrupted a National Security Committee meeting to object to live coverage by the state broadcaster.
The meeting was held to vote on a proposal to summon PPM Parliamentary Group Leader MP Abdulla Yameen for questioning.
Committee Chair MP Ali Waheed told press that the rules of procedure did not prohibit live telecasts or dictate terms for media coverage.
The disruption of the live broadcast saw MDP activists gather outside the parliament building to protest.
With opposition MPs still inside parliament over an hour and half after the meeting ended, a group of PPM supporters gathered for a counter-protest.
Riot police in the area separated the rival protesters and cordoned off the area shortly before midnight.
MP Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom was grilled by parliament’s National Security Committee today over allegations of an illegal oil trade worth US$800 million with Burma while the Mulaku MP was chairman of the State Trading Organisation (STO).
In the face of repeated questioning during today’s meeting, Yameen denied any involvement in “micro-management” of STO subsidiary companies during his time as chairman until 2005.
A resolution proposed by Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Mohamed Musthafa to investigate the allegations was sent to the National Security Committee on August 2, which has since summoned and questioned senior STO officials.
Article 99 of the constitution grants parliamentary committees the power to “summon any person to appear before it to give evidence under oath, or to produce documents.”
The allegations first appeared in February this year in India’s The Week magazine in a cover story by Sumon K. Chakrabarti, Chief National Correspondent of CNN-IBN, who described Yameen as “the kingpin” of a scheme to buy subsidised oil through STO’s branch in Singapore and sell it through a joint venture called ‘Mocom Trading’ to the Burmese military junta, at a black market premium price.
Mocom Trading
“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.
“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 stated that: “what is becoming clear is that oil tankers regularly left Singapore for the Maldives, but never arrived here.'”
The article drew heavily on an investigation report by international accountancy firm Grant Thornton, commissioned by the government in March 2010, which obtained three hard drives containing financial information of transactions from 2002 to 2008. No digital data was available before 2002, and the paper trail “was hazy”.
In 2004, investigators from accountancy firm KPMG found in an STO audit that Mocom Trading was set up in February that year 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 (employees of STO), and a Malaysian named Raja Abdul Rashid Bin Raja Badiozaman, who was the Chief of Intelligence for the Malaysian armed forces for seven years.
As well as the four shareholders, former Managing Director of STO Singapore, Ahmed Muneez, served as the director.
Malaysia’s Mocom Corporation was one of four companies with a tender to sell oil to the Burmese junta, alongside Daewoo, Petrocom Energy and Hyundai.
Muneez, Ashan and Sana have been questioned by the National Security Committee over the past two weeks.
“Ex officio”
At today’s committee meeting, Yameen maintained that chairmanship of the STO board was an “ex officio” (by right of office) post, and as the affairs of Mocom Trading was managed by the STO subsidiary company in Singapore, “it doesn’t reach the STO board in Male’.”
The STO chairman under the previous government was not an executive chairman who handled day-to-day management of the state-owned enterprise, Yameen explained, adding that appointing board members to subsidiaries was handled by the Managing Director.
“Yameen is the chairman of STO, Singapore STO’s chairman is Mohamed Hussein Manik, Mocom Singapore – its called Mocom Singapore because it was formed in Singapore – has a board, a chairman and MD,” he said. “So information about STO subsidiary companies and STO JVs (joint ventures), even if its run in the Maldives, does not come to the STO board.”
The STO board would not know of the dealings of companies such as Fuel Supply Maldives, which supplies oil to resorts and inhabited islands, “because each company is a legal entity and its board has full discretion to conduct any legal business as broadly as it wants.”
He added that “micro-management issues” of subsidiary companies were not dealt with by the STO board and the chairman “did not know and did not have to know”.
Asked by MDP MP Mohamed Thoriq if he believed Mocom Trading was formed illegally, Yameen said he did not know “even the date the company was formed” or Mocom’s board members.
Former STO Managing Director Manik had previously told the committee that he discovered Mocom’s existence when the issue came up at an annual general meeting.
Asked by Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Mohamed Nashiz if he visited Singapore on official trips on behalf of STO, Yameen said he never went to Singapore with the express purpose of evaluating STO Singapore.
Nashiz had said at last night’s meeting that the total value of STO’s oil trade amounted to over US$4 billion – or Rf61 billion – over the course of 14 years and six months “if the information [STO Singapore MD] Muneez gave us was accurate.”
Nashiz suggested that Muneez’s claim that he “made all the decisions on his own” was dubious.
DRP MP Rozaina Adam meanwhile noted today that testimony by STO MD Manik and STO Singapore MD Muneez “conflicted” as Manik insisted he was unaware of Mocom’s formation but Muneez said it was formed after the head office provided all the required legal documentation.
Manik had also revealed at the committee that Muneez’s annual bonus was withheld as a result of his role in forming the joint venture without a board resolution.
Asked by Rozaina if the MD had shared any concerns with the chairman, Yameen said he had not.
Yameen however said he found it “very hard to believe” that the MD or accounting section would have been unaware of the transactions with Mocom.
Moreover, Singapore had the strictest commercial laws in the region and the trade in question was conducted with “back-to-back LCs (lines of credit)” with “first-class banks,” said Yameen, making it difficult to siphon off money to a third party as it would require a letter with instructions to do so, which would have been noted as “highly unusual.”
Today’s meeting was disrupted at frequent intervals by shouting matches that broke out between MDP and the former president’s newly-formed Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM). MP Yameen, half-brother of Gayoom and long-serving Trade Minister in his cabinet, was elected by the PPM interim council as its parliamentary group leader.
The Civil Court has today ordered Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Chairperson and MP ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik to settle an outstanding debt of Rf2.9 million to Caterpillar Financial Service’s Asia Branch within three months.
Caterpillar claimed that in 2007 Heavy Load Maldives – a family business of the Hulhu-Henveiru MP – took a loan of US$700,000 (Rf10.5 million at the current exchange rate) from Caterpillar, which was co-signed by Moosa.
Caterpillar said at the Civil Court that Heavy Load had not settled the debt and requested Moosa be ordered to pay the loan as the co-signatory.
Delivering the verdict, Judge Mariyam Nihayath said that in the agreement made between Moosa and Caterpillar, Moosa had also agreed to pay a compensation fee plus the amount paid to hire a lawyer without any obligations.
Judge Nihayath ordered Moosa to pay the total amount which is Rf2.9 million in three months.
However, following the court ruling Moosa expressed concern and criticized the judiciary saying that the judiciary was like a “mad lion.’’
MDP official website quoted him saying that the court should not order him to pay the money without ordering Heavy Load Company to pay the loan.
The former MDP parliamentary group leader told the ruling party’s website that today’s ruling gave him more courage to continue the work to free the judiciary and make it independent.
He also said that Civil Court was issuing such rulings because Moosa and his lawyer Hassan Afeef was publicly advocating judicial reform. .
According to the constitution, if a MP has a decreed debt and is not paying the debt according to the court ruling, he will be disqualified and lose his seat in parliament.
A Maldivian drug kingpin, who was among the top six dealers the President announced had been identified by the government, has been arrested in India on a joint special operation conducted by Maldives police and the Indian Drug Bureau.
Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam confirmed that the man was arrested yesterday while he was in India.
“He was arrested in a joint special operation conducted by the police Drug Enforcement Department and India’s Drug Bureau,” Shiyam said. “He is currently being held in detention in India.”
Shiyam said that his name and other details of the operation will be provided later.
On February 28 last year, Criminal Court ruled that Adam Naseer of H. Reendhooge was innocent of dealing drugs. He was later named by the President as one of the top drug dealers in the Maldives.
Police searched Naseer’s home in Addu Atoll on 30 June 2009, where they found over Rf6 million (US$461,500) in cash and a tin containing drugs outside his house.
On June 26, police arrested an individual suspected of being one of the Maldives’ most high-profile drug dealers after spending several months collecting information about his procedures for importing narcotics.
The Head of the police’s Drug Enforcement Department (DED), Superintendent Mohamed Jinah, told members of the press that the alleged drug lord was arrested on June 24, along with several companions also suspected of being involved in supplying drugs.
The Maldives delegation to the 36th UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) General Conference was forced to return without participating in yesterday’s vote to grant full membership to Palestine, Press Secretary to the President Mohamed Zuhair has said.
Zuhair said the delegation, which included Education Minister Mariyam Shifa and Deputy Education Minister Dr Abdulla Nazeer, were unaware of a vote when they attended the bi-annual meeting of the UN cultural agency.
“They were travelling on a UNESCO ticket and they had difficulties in extending their stay, besides Education Minister had to attend a [parliamentary] committee meeting the next day,” Zuhair explained. “Due to those reasons they were forced to return but that does not mean that the Maldives worked against the Palestine resolution. It was co-sponsored by the Maldives and we did a lot of campaigning for it.”
The resolution was adopted with 107 countries voting in favour, 14 voting against and 52 abstaining. The vote signaled a significant symbolic victory for Palestine’s bid for statehood ahead of a similar vote at the UN General Assembly in New York.
Zuhair said the Ambassador to France, Dr Farhanaz Faisal, was in the Maldives at the time and Ambassador to Geneva, Ibthisham Adam, was unable to attend on short notice.
Opposition parties, including Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) and religiously conservative Adhaalath Party, has meanwhile condemned the non-participation and dismissed the reasons provided as “unacceptable.”
Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) Media Coordinator MP Ahmed Nihan told Minivan News that the government’s stated reasons for the non-participation was very irresponsible.
“What they are saying to defend themselves is a big joke to me and does not make much sense,” said Nihan. “The campaign they did and the co-sponsoring the resolution is a big drama the government played.”
The Vili-Maafanu MP claimed the last time he sent a notice to the Education Minister to attend a parliament committee, she appared one and half month later.
“So the cabinet ministers in this government does not give that much attention to attend committee meetings and saying that they returned without taking part in the vote does not make any sense at all,”
He alleged the absence of the Maldives delegation was the result of conversations between former Defence Minister Ameen Faisal and Israeli intelligence agency MOSSAD revealed by the Wikileaks US State Department cables
Nihan claimed the current government had “secret relations with Israel” and suggested hidden reasons behind the non-participation.
Press Secretary Zuhair however dismissed the insinuations as attempts by the opposition to “politicise the matter and mislead the public.”
“The Maldives will be one country that worked most to make the Palestine resolution get passed,” he said.
Parliament was disrupted and cancelled less than half an hour into today’s sitting after opposition MPs vociferously objected to the presence of convicted MP Ismail Abdul Hameed, insisting that sittings could not go ahead with the Kaashidhoo MP in attendance.
Hameed was convicted of corruption on August 29 and sentenced to 18 months banishment. He has since appealed the Criminal Court verdict at the High Court, which concluded hearings last week and is due to issue a ruling.
Parliament sittings have been cancelled since last Monday as a result of the dispute over Hameed’s right to participate in sittings and committee meetings pending a High Court decision.
Discussions among parliamentary group leaders to resolve the deadlock have so far been unsuccessful. Some committee meetings, where legislation is reviewed and stakeholders consulted, have however been taking place over the past two weeks.
Responding to points of order raised by opposition MPs today, Speaker Abdulla Shahid said parliament did not have the legal authority or jurisdiction to determine if an MP should be stripped of his or her seat.
Shahid noted that according to article 74 of the constitution, “Any question concerning the qualification or removal, or vacating of seats, of a member of the People’s Majlis shall be determined by the Supreme Court.”
“The constitution doesn’t say the Majlis Speaker, a Majlis member or any other state institution could do it,” he said, adding that by-elections would be called and conducted by the independent Elections Commission (EC).
The Speaker explained that the EC had sent a letter to parliament requesting that the Supreme Court’s counsel be sought to resolve the dispute.
According to article 95 of the constitution, parliament could “by resolution refer to the Supreme Court for hearing and consideration important questions of law concerning any matter, including the interpretation of the constitution and the constitutional validity of any statute.”
Parliament’s Independent Institutions Committee has however been unable to reach a decision on seeking the Supreme Court’s opinion on the issue.
Shahid noted that the Supreme Court could only offer assistance if parliament passed a resolution.
“Therefore, a solution to this could be found when the Supreme Court considers the issue and makes a decision,” he said. “Today’s sitting was held because as Speaker I believe that until then we should proceed with the work of this Majlis.”
Opposition MPs however continued to raise points of order contending that there was no room for dispute as an MP with a sentence to serve could not attend parliament. After the series of consecutive points of order, Speaker Shahid called off today’s sitting.
Following last week’s forced cancellations, Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) MP Ahmed Nihan told Minivan News that opposition MPs did not wish to disrupt proceedings but were objecting because article 73(c)(3) of the constitution clearly stated that MPs found guilty of a criminal offence “and sentenced to a term of more than twelve months” would be stripped of their seat.
“What if later at some point the High Court and the Supreme Court upholds the lower court’s ruling and declares that his seat is vacant?” he asked. “If that happens, then another issue will be raised – how do we know if the votes he gives now are valid?”
Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Chairperson ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik has said that the no-confidence motion opposition parties were trying to file in the parliament against the Attorney General Abdulla Muiz will fail.
“We will not let the no-confidence motion succeed, Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) is attempting to terminate anyone that works for justice,’’ Moosa told MDP Official website.
Moosa said that the no-confidence motion was planned to save Gassan Maumoon, son of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who is currently being investigated for allegedly hitting a 17 year-old boy with a wooden plank.
Recently, interim council member of PPM Mohamed ‘Mundhu’ Shareef told the local newspaper that he was concerned about the revision of prosecution guidelines, insisting that it might force Prosecutor General Ahmed Muiz to press criminal charges against Gassan Maumoon.
“His decision to revise prosecution guidelines concerning a single individual proves that he hasn’t been carrying out his responsibilities,” he told newspaper Haveeru, adding that Muiz had violated the Supreme Court ruling issued in September 2009 in Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) President Hassan Luthfy’s case that the AG cannot appeal verdicts delivered by lower courts.
Shareef told the media that he will submit a resolution to PPM Parliamentary Group to forward a no-confidence motion against AG Muiz.
Meanwhile, the government has said that it will forward a no-confidence motion against Prosecutor General after he allegedly forced a police senior officer’s team to leave his office when they went to see the PG for advice on Gassan’s arrest and the Criminal Court’s ruling.
When police arrested Gassan for investigation of the case where a 17 year-old boy was injured, the Criminal Court ruled that police have violated the criminal justice procedure in arresting Gassan and that he cannot be held in detention.
Later the police said most of the criminals arrested in the past were arrested in the same way as Gassan and that if Gassan’s arrest was unlawful so will be all the arrests made in the past.
PPM Spokesperson Ahmed Mahlouf and Media Coordinator Ahmed Nihan did not respond to Minivan News at time of press.
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