Disaster Management Centre

The Audit Office has said that the amount embezzled from the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) in 2009 and 2010 could exceed the figure indicated in the audit report, which was MVR24 million.

Due to the gravity of this matter, Auditor General Niyaz Ibrahim was summoned to the Public Accounts Committee today for questioning.

Maduvvari MP Visam Ali asked if the amount could be greater than MVR24 million, to which Niyaz replied that MVR24 million is the amount revealed when the audit was conducted, and that it is possible that the actual funds misappropriated are greater than this figure.

Niyaz said that the investigation was delayed due to lack of documents, and that some documents are missing even at DMC. He said that money was released for purchase orders without checking if the goods had been received.

“That’s a different issue. What we know for sure is that the government released money to ABC in 2005. But the purchase orders were copied, and money was obtained later from Apollo under ABC’s name. This has been confirmed, 100 percent,” he said.

The Audit Report states that MVR24.8 million was paid for 571 forged invoices. Niyaz said that the total value of the remaining 141 invoices is about MVR10 million, and that those invoices were not paid because they were rejected by Finance Ministry’s SAP system.

“Otherwise, that money would also have been paid,” he said.

The Audit Office today revealed to the Committee, the names of six people involved in this case.

Senior Auditor Mohamed Aiman, who was in charge of the audit, said that at the time these corrupt activities took place, the Head of DMC was State Minister Abdullah Shahid, Director General was Mohamed Shahid, and Deputy Director General was Moosa Ali Kaleyfaan.

The persons involved in the case from Finance Ministry were former Financial Controller Mohamed Ahmed and former Minister of State for Finance Ahmed Assad.

The persons involved from ABC are its Directors Ali Najah and Abdullah Najah.

Niyaz stressed that action should be taken against Abdullah Shahid, Mohamed Shahid and Moosa Ali Kaleyfaan, as the corruption of MVR24 million is a result of serious negligence on their part.

The audit report highlighted that considering the transactions involved in this corruption case, it is highly unlikely that the activities took place without the knowledge of the senior officials of the two important government institutions that were involved.

Niyaz noted today that the negligence of officials of Finance Ministry is greatly responsible for this embezzlement.

Aiman said that senior officials of DMC met with State Minister for Finance Assad, before money was released for the bills in question. However, no records exist at DMC in relation to this meeting.

Aiman informed that the invoices were forged by changing them and making photocopies, and that the lists of purchase items and delivery locations were often changed on the invoices.

Aiman said that this is suspected to be acts of corruption, because no questions were raised before paying for invoices that had been issued long ago. Also, no questions were raised before settling invoices that were rejected by the system.

MPs asked why the audit report did not include details of the forged financial transactions. Niyaz replied that Finance Ministry used cash cheques to pay Apollo, and that the Police are working with banks to obtain details of those financial transactions.