Tag: Theemuge Welfare Fund

DRP MP Rozaina posts more Theemuge invoices on Twitter

Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Rozaina Adam on Thursday posted more invoices and receipts from the former presidential palace Theemuge on her Twitter account, following her exposure earlier this month of extravagant spending by former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s family.

The lavish expenses were allegedly made out of the Theemuge Welfare Budget – funds that were earmarked for helping the poor upon written request to the former palace, such as requests for assistance to seek medical treatment overseas.

The latest invoices to be made public by the DRP MP included a payment voucher of £1,013 (MVR 25,122) from the Maldives High Commission in the UK for “17 boxes of personal belongings of HEP’s [His Excellency the President’s] family and 1 box to the Office at the Presidential Palace, sent to Theemuge by airfreight.”

The boxes contained items purchased by the former President’s family during shopping sprees in London, the MP explained.Theemuge invoice

Among the other documents uploaded by the MP for Kaafu Thulusdhoo was “a receipt verified by the Audit Office for US$50,000 taken by [former First Lady] Nasreena [Ibrahim] on her Dubai trip,” MP Rozaina tweeted.

Rozaina also posted a credit card statement “for the meal by MAG [Maumoon Abdul Gayoom] family at Thanying Restaurant which cost MVR 21,803.88.”

She posted a second receipt of US$1,414 for a meal at the same restaurant in Singapore “on the same trip by MAG family.”

“Here’s the actual meal receipt for 1 meal by MAG family from ‘Song of India’ restaurant [at a] cost [of] MVR 22,097.7,” Rozaina tweeted with a picture of another receipt.

After MP Rozaina first made the allegations of extravagant spending from Theemuge in parliament, former President Gayoom’s lawyer, Ibrahim Waheed, released a statement insisting that all expenditure out of Theemuge was “in accordance with the rules and regulations” and in line with the former presidential palace’s budget approved by parliament.

Waheed added that all records and documentation of expenditure were left at the palace files when the former president left office in November 2008.

Rozaina however issued a counter statement last week noting that the former president’s lawyer had neither contested the authenticity of the bills and invoices nor denied that the expenses were made out of the Theemuge budget.

In her statement, the DRP MP said that the invoices and bills she made public were “just a few among thousands” at parliament’s Finance Committee.

Pressed by Twitter users when she first uploaded the documents on October 19 as to why she had not spoken about the Theemuge expenses before, Rozaina tweeted, “I thought auditor general was politicising. He sent all the bills this year.”

“Previously it was just a report,” she added. “Documentary evidence was sent to the Majlis only this year.”

Rozaina revealed that parliament’s Finance Committee was currently reviewing the Theemuge audit report.

MP Rozaina’s husband and DRP MP for Raa Atoll Alifushi, Mohamed Nashiz, is the deputy chair of the committee.

The damning audit report (English) of the former presidential palace for 2007 and 2008 – released in April 2009 – stated that 49 percent of the palace’s welfare budget, equivalent to MVR 48.2 million (US$3,750,000 at the time), was diverted from the budget for the poor in 2007 and 52 percent, MVR 44.9 million (US$3,500,000), in 2008.

“We believe this is corruption and misappropriation of public funds,” the former Auditor General had stated.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Leaked Theemuge invoices “few among thousands”: MP Rozaina

Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Rozaina Adam has said that invoices from the former presidential palace Theemuge she leaked through Twitter on Friday were “just a few among thousands” at the parliament’s Finance Committee.

In a press statement issued in response to former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s attorney denying wrongdoing by the Gayoom family, the DRP MP for Thulusdhoo noted that the former president’s lawyer had neither contested the authenticity of the bills and invoices nor denied that the expenses were made out of the Theemuge budget.

Gayoom’s lawyer Ibrahim Waheed had insisted in a press statement on Sunday that all expenditure out of the presidential palace was “in accordance with the rules and regulations” as parliament had approved the funds for the palace.

However, Auditor General Niyaz Ibrahim told newspaper Haveeru today that the state should recover funds used by former presidents on their families and associates. Lack of legislation explicitly prohibiting such expenses was not an obstacle to recovering the misappropriated funds, the Auditor General contended.

He noted that there was no law that authorised the use of public funds for personal expenses, adding that assistance from state funds should be provided on an equal and fair basis.

“Even if its Nasheed, Waheed or Maumoon, no one can spend state funds for their own personal use,” Niyaz was quoted as saying.

While the Theemuge audit report for 2007 and 2008 was released in April 2009, Rozaina meanwhile explained that the Auditor General’s Office sent bills from the former presidential palace to the parliament’s powerful public accounts oversight committee in 2012.

The damning audit report revealed that extravagant expenses for the Gayoom family were made out of the Theemuge Welfare Fund, earmarked for helping the poor.

In addition to the invoices she posted on Friday, Rozaina revealed that documents at the committee showed that former First Lady Nasreena Ibrahim took US$50,000 in cash during a trip to Dubai on May 6, 2007.

In her statement, Rozaina noted the expenses she exposed on Friday in Maldivian Rufiya: MVR193,209 on trouser material in 2008; MVR116,373 for Gayoom’s daughter Yumna Maumoon’s stay in Singapore’s Grand Hyatt Hotel in 2007; MVR364,958 for Yumna’s stay at the same hotel during the previous year; MVR202,096 for Yumna’s husband Nadeem, Gayoom’s son Gassan Maumoon and his wife Swineetha’s stay in the hotel; and over MVR29,000 for Gassan’s spectacles.

On Waheed’s claim that the expenses were lawful, Rozaina noted that the former Auditor General had recommended recovering the funds used by Gayoom’s family and associates and pressing charges against the former president for misappropriation of public funds.

The audit report had noted that over US$ 3 million earmarked for helping the poor was spent on “the president’s relatives, ministers and their families, senior government officials and some MPs.”

The report stated that 49 percent of the palace’s budget, equivalent to MVR 48.2 million (US$3,750,000 at the time), was diverted from the budget for the poor in 2007 and 52 percent, MVR 44.9 million (US$3,500,000), in 2008.

Rozaina meanwhile went on to say that she believed the public should know of the extravagant spending by the former president’s family, as it was done at a time when a large number of Maldivian citizens displaced by the tsunami were living in temporary shelters.

The family’s shopping sprees in London and stays in expensive hotels in Singapore could have paid for a number of infrastructure projects in her constituency alone, Rozaina noted, such as building classrooms in Kaafu Huraa or establishing sewerage systems in Kaafu Thulusdhoo, Himmafushi and Dhiffushi.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)