Embattled ACC members accused of acting in violation of standard protocol

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) members - against whom the Parliament has initiated an impeachment motion – have been accused of acting in violation of standard protocol. 

Parliament’s Independent Institutions Committee, which has been working through recess to expedite the motion, gave members of the corruption watchdog five days to respond to the allegations against them in writing last week. 

Meanwhile, a separate case signed by three members of the committee has been submitted to the committee accusing ACC members of acting in violation of standard protocol. 

The committee is scheduled to convene for a meeting on Wednesday evening to make a decision regarding the case. 

The committee voted to initiate the process of dismissal all ACC members based on findings of a performance audit, which uncovered the commission had over 16,000 pending cases. 

The committee highlighted 10 main issues uncovered in the audit in its report. 

The committee said that while ACC completed investigations into 61 percent of corruption cases, only one percent of the cases were sent for prosecution. 

The committee said the commission had a huge backlog, and takes a long time to forward cases to the Prosecutor General’s Office even after completing investigations. They also said that a lot of the cases sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office were sent back to the commission. 

The committee said in its report that the pace of the commission’s work was unusually slow, and that many of the funds stolen from the state remains unrecovered. The committee found only MVR 11,000 in funds were recovered by the end of October. 

ACC currently has three members; the commission’s president Mariyam Shiuna, vice president Fathimath Anoola, and Aishath Abdulla. 

Two of the commission’s members – Ibrahim Shakeel and Ali Ashraf – recently resigned.