Government has allowed tax exemptions in the Nexbis agreement: Nazim

Chairman of the Parliament Public Accounts Committee, Dhiggaru MP Ahmed Nazim has said that the government had made tax exemption in its agreement with Nexbis Limited of Malaysia regarding the Border Control System project.

Presenting the committee report on notifying the government to stop the Border Control System project to the parliament assembly, Nazim said that the committee had looked into the “financial commitments” of the government during the period of the contract.

Nazim said that Finance Ministry has not received a copy of the agreement even though it has been two years since the agreement was signed. He said that there are problems relating to as early as the bidding process, as well as problems of tampering with certain papers communicated by the National Planning Council, the oversight body regarding the agreement. He also said that the time when the papers were tampered with could not be determined and that they were changed in such a way that it would benefit Nexbis.

“It cannot be determined when the papers were changed. The process has been changed in such a way that the party adopting the project will benefit from it. The way they wanted and demanded,” said Nazim.

The committee investigation shows that the government is liable to pay the company a sum of $166 million while the government is to gain a meager amount of $8 million as royalty.

Reflecting on the time the border control system agreement was signed, Nazim said that the negligence of the then Attorney General was quite apparent. Dr. Ahmed Ali Sawad was the Attorney General in 2010 when the agreement was signed.

Nazim said that the former Attorney General had a meeting with the Department of Immigration and that the agreement was amended in a manner agreed upon in this meeting, and that none of the decisions during the meeting was communicated in writing.

Nazim also said that the former Solicitor General of the Attorney General’s Office had given a statement to the Anti-Corruption Commission stating that none of the points agreed upon by the Attorney General during the meeting had been amended in the agreement.

Nazim said that a recommendation has been included in the budget urging the termination of the agreement. He said that if such a recommendation is included in the budget, the government will not have a choice but to terminate the agreement with Nexbis.

“We want to include such a recommendation in order to force the government to terminate the agreement. To not allow the government to have an option in this matter,” said Nazim.

The report submitted to the parliament today appealed to order the government to ensure that the agreements signed by the government with different parties are in accordance with the country’s constitution.

In this regard, the tax exemption allowed by the government in the Nextbis agreement is against the constitution, as the power to exempt taxes, as per Article 97 (d) of the constitution, lies with the parliament.

The parliament is scheduled to vote on the Nextbis agreement report this afternoon.