The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has sent a case to the Prosecutor General’s Office to prosecute former CEO Hassan Shah and several former employees of Maldives Transport and Contracting Company (MTCC). Regarding this case, the ACC stated that in connection with the tower construction project carried out to provide housing for MTCC employees, the company’s executives worked to provide undue benefits to the company awarded the contract. As such, the ACC has requested prosecution against former MTCC CEO Hassan Shah, Shifa’u Ali who was then General Manager and a member of the Tender Evaluation Committee, Hussain Zuhury, Mohamed Nazim, and Ismail Adham who were members of the Tender Evaluation Committee at the time.
The ACC said that in connection with the announcement to find a party to build two 15-storey towers in the second phase of Hulhumale to provide housing for MTCC employees under the government’s housing policy, points were awarded to a foreign company in violation of the evaluation criteria among the bidders. They also said that after awarding the project to that company, even though the company acted in a way that required termination of the agreement, instead of terminating the agreement, “advance payments” and “progressive payments” were released to the company. The ACC also said that efforts were made to assign works required under the agreement as separate tasks, and while the contracted company had not carried out the work as per the agreement, that agreement was not terminated. The ACC said these actions have caused significant financial losses to MTCC.
In this case, in addition to the financial loss of MVR 39,241,855.78 to MTCC, the ACC has instructed MTCC to calculate and recover additional financial losses incurred. The charges requested for prosecution in this case include the offense of using official influence improperly to obtain and provide benefits, as well as the offense of acting otherwise in a matter where the state could have benefited. The ACC has also sent to the PG’s office an additional charge of attempted crime against Shifa’u Ali.
