The Mohamed Muizzu administration dare not investigate the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) scandal, former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom has said, accusing current administration officials of involvement. Yameen was speaking at a People’s National Front (PNF) rally on Monday night.
Referring to Muizzu’s comments that he would recover all the money lost through MMPRC and bring those involved to justice, Yameen said he knew the calibre of senior administration officials, including President Muizzu.
“This is a story that will never end. When the President made that statement at PNC [the People’s National Congress] headquarters, many people had sadness on their faces,” he said.
He said the police would have compiled a list of those who received the money based on information received through former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb Abdul Ghafoor, who was at the root of the MMPRC scandal. President Muizzu should inform the police to make the list public, Yameen said.
“Is there any legal basis to keep the list hidden? It is the people’s money. It is in the interest of the people,” the former president said.
With an administration aligned super majority in Parliament, neither the police nor the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) can investigate the MMPRC scandal, he said.
Yameen, who resigned as the leader of the PNC/PPM coalition after the Presidential Elections results and is now the leader of the opposition PNF, said President Muizzu would not dare look into the matter as there are multiple allegations of corruption against Speaker of Parliament Abdul Raheem Abdulla, Foreign Minister Moosa Zameer, and even President Muizzu himself.
“People who have taken heaps of illicit funds through the MMPRC scam are in the President’s Office as ministers. What is Muizzu talking about?” Yameen said calling out the President.
“These are not people with character. Will Muizzu dare to look into these cases of Abdul Raheem? Don’t you know President Muizzu will never dare to look into the MMPRC scam,” he said.
Should Muizzu’s intentions be pure, he should call for an independent inquiry, Yameen said.
“It is better for us to have the Attorney General, and the Prosecutor General should also sit at the commission along with many others, but then this should include people who are not from the ruling PNC/PPM,” he said.
The MMPRC scandal came to light during the Yameen administration, however the case was never aggressively investigated either by Yameen or, during the administration which followed, by Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
Only Yameen, Abdul Ghafoor and MMPRC Managing Director Abdulla Ziyath have been sentenced to jail for their roles in the MMPRC scandal so far. However, Abdul Ghafoor, who was pardoned by the Solih administration, now resides overseas, while the the High Court quashed the sentence against Yameen and ordered the Criminal Court, citing procedural irregularities, to hear his case again — Ziyath was also pardoned by Solih.