President orders police to investigate unlawful activities of 2011 SAARC Summit

President Dr. Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik has ordered the police to investigate the unlawful activities carried out by former president Mohamed Nasheed's administration during the 2011 SAARC Summit.

Speaking at a campaign event by Forward with the Nation coalition last night, President Waheed said that he has ordered the police, through his powers as the president, to investigate the matter.

“Through my rights as the president, I have now told the police to investigate the matter,” President Waheed said.

The President said that the amounts of money spent unlawfully for the SAARC Summit are still unaccounted for, and that former President Mohamed Nasheed’s administration had wasted over MVR400 million in his attempts to get things done quickly.

The gross mismanagement of state funds for the 2011 SAARC Summit held in Addu City came to light through an Audit Report recently released by the Auditor General.

The report revealed that a large number of funds were disbursed to companies as payments for work carried out by officers of the military and the police.

Former President Nasheed recently admitted that as a result of trying to get things done in haste, some funds might have been utilized against the Public Finance Act, but said that he had not “betrayed” any state funds.

One of the many discrepancies noted by the audit report include the spending of a total of 16.8 million against the law for entertainment activities in Fuvahmulah for the 2011 SAARC Summit where these funds were spent in a manner in which that would facilitate for corruption.

It also revealed that sixty percent of the work related to the compound of the Convention Centre in Addu City was carried out by police and MNDF officers, but the auditor general has noted that MVR 5.1 million was provided from the budget, in violation of the law, to Southern Utilities Limited (SUL) for carrying out the work.

It also stated that money was paid from the SUL to several private companies, including one company that did not even exist,

The Auditor General's audit report for the 2011 November SAARC Summit also stated that the government had purchased two display units from Lintel Investments for the Equatorial Convection Centre in Addu City for a sum of MVR 1.8 million, without the proper request for the purchase to the Tender Board and that an excess of MVR 61 million was made to AMIN Construction for a project agreed for MVR 210 million. It also states that an advance payment was paid for the project, contrary to the Public Finance Act.