Parliament seeks details of vehicles procured for police housing project

The Parliament has asked the police to disclose details regarding the vehicles procured for the Blues Housing Project – a police housing scheme which saw the construction of apartments in Hulhumale’.

The Parliament sent a letter addressed to Commissioner of Ali Shujau on Tuesday seeking the details.

In the letter, the Parliament asked him to share details regarding a number of vehicles imported into the Maldives for the project between 2014 and 2017; three vehicles in 2014, one vehicle each in 2015 and 2016, and three in 2017.

The Parliament asked to have the details sent by 12:00 pm on Tuesday.

The details requested by the Parliament includes:

• The purpose of the import of the vehicles and registration details
• Details regarding any vehicles that may have been registered to the police service
• The purpose of the car that was imported along with the rest of the vehicles, and who the car belongs to now
• A copy of the registry of the vehicles

The Auditor General’s Office released its audit of the 2013 police housing project ‘Blues Housing Project’ run by POLCO on January 23.

The audit uncovered losses amounting to MVR 354.7 million due to POLCO’s “corruption and incompetence.”

The audit uncovered that the project – which should have cost MVR 745.3 million or MVR 859.9 million at the most based on average market price – cost over MVR 1 billion.

The audit found the project resulted in losses amounting to MVR 354.7 million due to “corruption and incompetence.”

The case is also under investigation by a subcommittee of the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. During a meeting on Sunday, Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim, the chair of the subcommittee, said they haven’t been able to access all the documents related to the case.

Nazim said that the most important decision the committee must decide is what do with top police officials implicated in the case.

He said that it is imperative to decide whether they should be allowed to remain in their roles amid the investigation.

The Parliament has also received a letter from a police whistleblower highlighting more allegations of corruption linked to POLCO.

CP Shujau previously said the police would submit all allegations of corruption to the ACC following a review of the audit report.

Meanwhile, Auditor General Hussain Niyazy has previously told the Parliament that the management of POLCO claimed to have lost many of the documents linked to the case due to an issue with the company’s server.