The President offering privileges to senior ranking state
officials is tantamount to bribery, Transparency Maldives has said.
In a tweet posted in relation to former Auditor General’s recent
interview with RaajjeTV, Transparency Maldives said “offering of
privileges by President to high-ranking public officials can be
perceived as bribery”.
Speaking on RaajjeTV’s ‘Fala Suruhee’ programme on
Saturday, the former chief auditor said President Yaameen had offered
him a luxury flat soon after he raised concern over several wrongdoings
by MMPRC officials and the then Tourism Minister Ahmed Adheeb in 2014.
Niyaz said that as Auditor General, he had personally met with president Yameen to discuss corrupt practices of Yameen's confidante and then tourism minister Ahmed Adeeb. Niyaz alleged that the president had failed to take note of his findings, going so far as to suggest that the auditor was getting too personal with the tourism minister.
Niyaz was sacked from the Auditor General's post after he published a report exposing a corruption scandal of MVR 77.1 million (USD 5 million) involving Adeeb, MMPRC and state owned company Maldives Ports Limited (MPL). The audit report said that, MPL had transferred MVR 77.1 million to MMPRC to be exchanged for foreign currency, which was later transferred by MMPRC to two private companies controlled by Adeeb.
Furthermore, Niyaz claimed senior Government officials and top officials from the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA) pressured Villa Group to dismiss him during his brief tenure at the company.
While Niyaz alleged that senior ranking officials from MIRA attempted to
force his dismissal, back then Villa Group was under fire from MIRA due
to a tax dispute. In early 2015, in addition to terminating various
island and lagoon lease agreements made with the Villa Group, MIRA had
frozen the bank accounts belonging to the company.
source- https://raajje.mv/58972
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