Whistleblower sends letter alleging more Polco corruption

An employee of the Maldives Police Service has sent a letter to the parliament, reporting of other potential corruption of Police Cooperative Society (Polco).

The letter to parliament has been sent while the legislative body has been inquiring about issues related to the ‘Blues Housing Project’ carried out by Polco. Earlier, the Auditor General’s Office reported discrepancies in the project, highlighting Polco had spent excessively for it.

The other corruption allegations against Polco surfaced at the subcommittee of the Public Accounts Committee of the parliament, where its chair and Dhiggaru MP Ahmed Nazim said a whistleblower had mailed information pertaining to this.

“As soon as we began investigating the case, a whistleblower, currently employed at Maldives Police Service, had mailed us additional information, which indicated that corrupt acts were not just limited to the housing initiative, but extended to acquiring other services and goods,” Nazim commented.

One of the documents the whistleblower had mailed included a report dated 2019, sent to then Police Commissioner Mohamed Hameed. Nazim said the former Commissioner had not taken any action regarding the information in the report.

Nazim also said that the Auditor General’s Office revealed involvement of senior officers in at least 16 different issues related to corruption, and added the most decision at the committee should be regarding corrective action against said officers.

While the parliament subcommittee is reviewing corruption allegations tied to Polco, the Auditor General, Hussain Niyaazy previously said that several important documents of the company have been lost owing to a server malfunction.

Besides the parliament, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has been investigating these corruption allegations as well.