MMA’s Governor: MMPRC scandal is daylight robbery

The governor of the central bank of Maldives, Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) Mr. Ahmed Naseer has described the MMPRC corruption scandal as daylight robbery.

The governor was speaking at a meeting of the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee on Monday when he made the remark.

He was summoned due to letter sent to the committee by the former head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of MMA Mr. Abdullah Ashraf.

Describing the scandal, the governor stated that they were talking about a scandal that saw USD 80 million being stolen from the country and its people and that he did not believe there was another scandal of this magnitude in such a timeframe anywhere else in the world. He also stated that one of the things that he gave the most importance to when he took over MMA was to ensure whether the central bank had had a hand in the MMPRC corruption. The governor stated when answering the questions of committee members during this meeting that he did not get the cooperation of the head of FIU Mr. Ashraf to investigate this matter, which in turn resulted in Mr. Ashraf’s termination.

According to the governor, the FIU had been aware of the million dollars that had been deposited to the then-president Yameen’s account in June, however, that the governor was only made aware of this fact in September. The governor stated that he was only made aware of this transaction by another employee of FIU when Mr. Ashraf was away on an overseas trip.

The MMPRC scandal saw the loss of USD 77.55 million income which was supposed to go to the MMPRC from leasing different islands in the country. While MMPRC gained only a mere USD 12.5 million from that money, USD 5.3 million was deposited to a SOF Private Limited account.