Aftec corruption was well-planned: ACC

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has said that the corruption case involving Aftec was one of the most serious corruption cases investigated by ACC so far, and that it was well-planned.

The case, forwarded by ACC to the Prosecutor General’s (PG) Office today involves Aftec Pvt Ltd, a company which received MVR11.8 million from the government for medical equipment that was never actually delivered.

Vice President of ACC Muavviz Rasheed said at a press conference today that the case also involves several criminal issues.

“The case deals with direct misuse of public funds. Investigations have revealed several criminal issues as well, including corruption, forgery, fraud and use of position to obtain undue advantage,” he said.

Muavviz said that the documents obtained by the Commission from Finance Ministry included Goods Delivery Notes sent by Aftec Solutions which had forged stamps and signatures of Health Ministry employees.

The forensic analysis conducted by the Commission in collaboration with the Police revealed that the stamp of Health Ministry used on Aftec’s Delivery Notes did not match the actual stamps of Health Ministry.

“The Delivery Notes were signed and stamped by an employee of Health Ministry. However the employee, during the investigations, has denied signing those Delivery Notes,” he said.

Muavviz highlighted that several problems were found in the prices and totals in the medical consumable quotations, included in the Contract Agreement.

In this regard, he said that the total prices of some items did not match the item quantities and unit prices.

Muavviz said that large discrepancies were found in the prices of laboratory consumables for different provinces.

The corruption case involving Aftec was first revealed in the Audit Report of Health Ministry for 2011. Police investigations are underway, and an Interpol Red Notice has been issued for one of the people involved in this case.