Shamheed says Public Accounts Committee documents on government companies have gone missing from Parliament

MP for South Hulhumale’ constituency Dr. Ahmed Shamheed says documents related to government company cases, initiated by the Public Accounts Committee under former Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim, have gone missing from Parliament’s files and agenda.

Speaking on Adhadhu’s programme, Shamheed said the Public Accounts Committee is now inactive and not fulfilling any of its responsibilities.

He noted that the committee’s core mandate is to review the country’s fiscal policies, assess debt sustainability, oversee state financial management, and scrutinize how the national budget is spent.

“We are talking about dollars every day in Maldives today. Which committee has that responsibility? The Public Accounts Committee. Have we done any agenda about it? There isn’t. How many days have we proposed to bring the MMA Governor to Parliament? The finance minister resigned and left without coming to Parliament to answer our questions,” Hulhumale’ South MDP MP Dr. Ahmed Shamheed said.

Shamheed has already moved to summon MMA Governor Ahmed Munawar to Parliament and said he has requested an appointment to meet him in person.

According to Shamheed, after Nazim began looking into issues within government companies, the matter was placed on the agenda twice and managing directors of some companies were summoned. However, he alleged that all related documents later disappeared and the item was removed from the agenda.

“The Member of Parliament for Dhiggaru started it all. All those procurement files, the papers were in our file. We even decided to summon some MDs, put them on the agenda once or twice, and then all the papers disappeared. No longer in the file, also missing from the agenda,” Shamheed said.

He added that such incidents have become commonplace and reflect broader issues within Parliament.

Nazim resigned as Deputy Speaker on May 31 this year, shortly before the ruling PNC, which holds a supermajority, moved to remove him with signatures from all party MPs. The party has not officially stated the reason for the move. Nazim has since been removed as PNC’s Dhiggaru constituency president.

Before the attempt to oust him, Nazim was stripped of his roles in key parliamentary committees, including the Public Accounts Committee and the Security Services Committee (241). He previously oversaw much of the committee’s work.

Many government companies continue to face serious financial losses and heavy state spending. Successive governments have also been accused of politically motivated appointments and corruption within state-owned enterprises.