Malé, Maldives – Former Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon, who is on the list of alleged beneficiaries of the MMPRC scam, will be produced before the Anti Corruption Commission today.
Dunya is accused of benefiting from the scam during the rule of her elder brother, former President Abdullah Yameen.
According to the list compiled by the Asset Recovery Commission and sent to Parliament, Dunya received MVR 200,000.
Dunya denies the allegations of being involved in the MMPRC scam. In a tweet, she said the charges against her were politically motivated. They are false allegations. Dunya said she has not stolen a single rufiya from the government and the people.
Investigative agencies have said that the money was distributed to various officials of the three branches of government and government agencies.
The stolen funds were funneled through the national bank after cheques paid to the MMPRC as resort acquisition fees were deposited to the account of a company called SOF.
A report prepared by the Asset Recovery Commission formed by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and an additional report by the ACC also found that the MMPRC sold 37 islands and 12 lagoons at undervalue.
The state should have received an additional MVR 3 billion from the sale of these islands and lagoons, according to relevant reports.
The Asset Recovery Commission has named 114 people in its report as beneficiaries of the money lost from the state. These include former and current members of parliament, former and current government officials, judges, and senior law enforcement officials.
The commission later said that not all the people on the list were involved in the fraud. The commission has now been dissolved as it failed to investigate properly and to recover money lost from the state.
The MMPRC scandal was first exposed in a damning audit report released in February 2016, which implicated former vice president Ahmed Adeeb and his associates in siphoning off fees paid to lease islands and lagoons for resort development.
According to a bank statement leaked by whistleblower Gasim Abdul Kareem – who was jailed for disclosing information – more than US$84 million was channeled through SOF’s US dollar account between May 2014 to October 2015.
