Malé, Maldives – The Prosecutor General of Maldives, Hussain Shameem has said that he is ready to resign over the missing ventilator case.
PG Shameem has said this after Speaker of the Parliament, Mohamed Nasheed called for his resignation and a no confidence vote over PG’s decision to not prosecute individuals involved in the high profile ventilator corruption case.
I will follow procedure when resigning.
PG Shameem
Speaking at an interview on Raajje TV PG Shameem said that Speaker Nasheed is a hard at work protecting Maldives and said that he agreed with Nasheed.
PG Shameem expressed his worry over the ventilator scandal, however, he explained that the PG office can only proceed with a case after collecting enough evidence for prosecution.
He added that while the case was investigated by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Maldives Police, PG received documents twice but none pointed to a bank account or an individual the first time. The second set of documents revealed some names and bank accounts, however, they were not connected to the ventilator case.
PG Shameem said that there is some money transfer to the accounts but not the amounts they are suspecting, adding that a large amount was not transferred during the time period, in a profitable way.
The ACC letter states that the money is not located. They are working on it. When the money and who received it is found we will prosecute.
PG Shameem
PG Shameem said that if the money trail is found and bank accounts or individuals are pinpointed through investigation, PG is ready to prosecute the case.
The investigator scandal case was investigated by Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) after an audit by the Auditor General’s Office suggested foul play in all three contracts awarded by the Ministry of Health, to procure 142 ventilators for the state. These include the agreements made between Executors General Trading LLC for 75 ventilators, MedTech Maldives Pvt Ltd for 50 ventilators and with Naadu Pvt Ltd to acquire 24 ventilators, out of which the agreement with Executors General which became the most controversial of all.
ACC had forwarded 11 names, including that of Minister Ameen, to the Prosecutor General’s Office to be charged with corruption under part (a)(2) of section 511, part (a) of section 512, part (b) of section 513 and part (a)(1) of section 313 of the Penal Code of Maldives. However, PGO revealed that due to insufficient evidence they have taken the decision to not prosecute any of the 11 individuals and sent back the report regarding ventilator corruption back to ACC.
