The Parliament Committee on Independent Institutions has approved sharing the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) flat list with officials of the Ibrahim Mohamed Solih administration to address ACC findings that 60 percent of applicants approved for housing through the ‘Gedhoruveriya‘ social housing scheme by the former administration’s Housing Ministry are, according to standards set out within the scheme itself, not eligible.
On Sunday, the parliamentary committee unanimously passed a motion to share the ACC findings and the list of ineligible applicants on a confidential basis with relevant members of the previous administration.
Monday’s committee hearings will be attended by ACC officials as well as the relevant members who were officials at the Solih administration’s Housing Ministry. Akram Kamaluddin, a former minister of state at the Housing Ministry, and Mohamed Arif, the senior executive director at the agency, will appear before the committee.
The ACC announced at a press conference on 5 February, that a large percentage of applicants on the list announced by the previous administration were ineligible and that only 20.70 percent of the forms included in the official list for housing fully met the requirements. Around 19.70 percent of applications were not sufficiently complete, the anti-corruption watchdog found.
Although requirements may have been met, 70 percent of forms contained discrepancies in information provided, and there were issues with the awarding of points with some forms, such as those with special needs and other problematic submissions, having been awarded points outside of the scheme’s documented parameters, the ACC noted.
While the Solih administration had originally contracted to build 4,000 flats for the Gedhoruveriya scheme, the provisional list of eligible applicants released on 8 August had 15,046 applicants — the administration then decided to award flats to all 15,046 eligible applicants.
The first 4,000 flats will be given to the highest scorers in points order.
After gaining access to the scheme’s portal on 1 February, the commission authorised the Mohamed Muizzu administration to resume work on issuing the housing units and related documentation.