The Public Accounts Committee of the Maldives Parliament has given the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) until the end of April to submit a key asset recovery bill to the legislative body.
This demand comes after the committee expressed concern on Monday that state coffers were stolen and invested in purchasing land and apartments in Hulhumale’.
The bill in question has been drafted by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) with support from international consultants, with the bill already submitted to AGO. The AGO has yet to finish its review and submit it to the parliament.
At a Public Accounts Committee meeting on Monday, the Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Nazim said the committee must “first and foremost” find a way to recover assets purchased with stolen state funds.
The Deputy Speaker’s remarks in tied to the committee’s recent inquiry into corruption by Police Cooperative Society (POLCO) regarding “illicitly obtained money” which was then used to purchase a plot of land from Hulhumale’ for MVR 15 million, and late resold for MVR 12 million.
According to Nazim, this entire transaction was carried out by a director of POLCO who was involved in the company’s “Blues Housing Project” corruption scandal.
“All this illicitly obtained money is invested in land and apartments in Hulhumale’. Our inquiry into POLCO case uncovered that immediately after POLCO took the money, one of the company’s directors purchased a land from Hulhumale’ for MVR 15 million,” Nazim commented.
He also stressed about the urgency in expediting the enactment of the asset recovery legislation.