ACC asks to prosecute three STO employees

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has forwarded a case to the Prosecutor General (PG) asking to prosecute three senior employees of the State Trading Organization Plc, accusing them of resorting to corrupt practices in hiring employees.

ACC today revealed the three accused as; Naaif Saleem, STO’s Sales and Marketing Manager, Adam Azim, STO’s General Manager of Sales and Marketing and Fathimath Aashaan, STO’s General Manager of Department of Human Resources.

The Commission said that they are being accused of facilitating to attain undue advantage in hiring employees for an STO store located in Gaafu Dhaalu Thinadhoo.

The Commission said that the parties involved had neglected to invalidate the job applications that did not fit the designated criteria and that their goal was to hire unqualified candidates. The accused had not considered the academic qualification certifications submitted by the candidates, the Commission said.

In addition, the Commission stated that the company’s Sales and Marketing Manager Naaif Saleem had awarded marks to underserving candidates when shortlisting them. ACC accused that when considered certain candidates for shortlisting, one of the unaccredited certificates submitted by a candidate was considered as a diploma. They said that Naaif Saleem and General Manager of Department of Human Resources Fathimath Aashaan had also awarded higher marks to undeserving candidates for the previous job experience category.

ACC stated that Fathimath Aashaan and Sales and Marketing Manager Adam Azim had confessed to receiving all the application in relation to the announcement to seek sales representatives for the STO store in Thinadhoo and that Adam Azim had confessed to doubled checking all the documents of shortlisted candidates before asking the Department of Human Resources to select the proper candidates.

ACC said that as Fathimath Aashaan had produced the documents of employment by considering the Adam Azim’s signature approving the candidates for the job, as both parties are the heads of the departments, it is their responsibility to ensure that the hiring process was according to correct procedure.

While the STO pocket manual states that a person seeking employment shall submit a letter proving the person is unemployed at that time, ACC states that one of the candidates who was employed to the Thinadhoo store had not submitted the letter proving unemployment.