Malé, Maldives – The first President of Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), and the former Member of Parliament, Ibrahim Ismail (Ibra), has said that the parliament cannot check which cases that the Prosecutor General (PG) prosecutes or drops.
Ibrahim has tweeted that the position of the Prosecutor General is independent, and that the Attorney General should also be independent in his work.
The Parliament cannot involve themselves with which cases that the PG and AG prosecutes or drops in court. Not even the party in power can.
Ibrahim Ismail, first President of Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), and former Member of Parliament
Ibrahim also has added that if the parliament has an involvement, it would be considered as a misuse of their power to nullify the power of the Maldivian Constitution.
His tweet comes while Former President and Speaker of the Parliament, Mohamed Nasheed had said that PG Shameem and President of Anticorruption Commission (ACC), Mariyam Shiuna should resign following PG’s decision on not to prosecute the corruption of ventilator case.
Following Prosecutor General’s refusal to charge those involved in the ventilator scandal, Speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Nasheed had also said that he is not willing to let the matter go.
According to ACC, the PG office had decided to uphold their earlier decision to not go ahead with the prosecution, stating that there was no new reason for changing PGs earlier stance on the case. They added that their review of the case submitted by ACC revealed no new elements that provide the basis for prosecuting those involved.
The entire ventilator scandal came to light following an audit by the Auditor General’s Office, which suggested foul play in all three contracts awarded by the Ministry of Health, to procure 142 ventilators for the state during the year 2020. 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 at the time refused to charge any of the individuals involved citing insufficient evidence.
While the then Health Minister Abdullah Ameen resigned from office after the matter hit headlines, some ventilators have since arrived. However, the new Health Minister Ahmed Naseem has said that there is no hope for any of the remaining ventilators to be received by the Maldives.
