Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) of Maldives has alleged the former state minister of Finance Ministry for acts of corruption, and filed prosecution.
The former minister is tried for his misconduct during the mass publication of Holy Quran books by the government, which was assigned to a private third party. The printed out books had multiple mistakes on it thus reflected as severe financial losses on state funds.
In a report publicized on Wednesday ACC claimed the printing of 150,000 mushafs (Holy Quran books) was assigned to a third party contractor and the arrangement between Finance Ministry was brokered under the state minister's supervision.
Both parties had mutually agreed with the publishing party receiving final 15% of the total payment immediately after the books were handed over to the ministry.
However upon inquiring with president's office via letter from finance ministry it was confirmed that of the initially agreed upon number of prints a total of 98,160 copies were not received to the government.
However Finance Ministry's state minister - who is under question regarding the case - had signed on an internal memo confirming all copies of the 150,000 Holy Quran books have been received by state.
According to the anti corruption commission the former state minister had agreed he had signed the internal memo.
The commission claims the incident as an act of corruption and facilitating a monetary gain for a private company, by the former state minister.
Furthermore the commission confirms that while only 18,405 copies were received at the government's end, the publishing contractor was issued the full payment amount of MVR 30,801,000 before the full required amount of 150,000 Quran copies were handed over to the state.
The commission also added that most of the books that were handed to the state had multiple mistakes and were in no condition to use, thus they had requested from both Finance Ministry and Attorney General's office to reclaim the value incurred for the project.
