Committee to probe allegation three govt ministers violated law

The Parliament on Tuesday forwarded a motion submitted by a lawmaker from the main opposition MDP, accusing three cabinet ministers of violating the constitution, to the Government Oversight Committee for review.

The motion, submitted by Thulhaadhoo MP Hisaan Hussain, accuses the three ministers of violating the Employment Act; Home Minister Ali Ihusan, Economic Minister Mohamed Saeed, and Higher Education Minister Dr. Mariyam Mariya.

The motion was sent to the Government Oversight Committee for review with a vote of 29-3 on Tuesday night.

Presenting the motion, Hisaan said that while issuing quotas and approval for recruitment of expatriates, and planning and implementing matters related to it falls within the mandate of the Home Ministry, formulating the regulations needed to enforce the Employment Act falls within the mandate of the Higher Education Ministry.

Hisaan argued in her motion that a responsibility charged under the law cannot be split between two different ministries, and that a power vested in a ministry charged with regulating employment related matters cannot be transferred to a different ministry or minister.

She said that the Home Ministry does not have the authority to formulate the regulations.

Hisaan also said that while the Employment Act caps the recruitment of labor from any single country at 100,000 laborers, administration lifted the ban on recruitment of unskilled labor from Bangladesh in December, despite the fact that there were already 139,220 Bangladeshi workers in Maldives.

She alleged that the Economic Ministry deliberately removed the statistics on expatriates from its website, after the issue surfaced.

Mariya was accused of violating the law by handing over a responsibility within her ministry’s mandate to another ministry.

Ihusan was accused of violating the law by granting permission for approval of unskilled labor from Bangladesh, and Saeed was accused of violating the law over the removal of statistics from his ministry’s website.

During the debate on the motion, lawmakers from the opposition MDP and Democrats demanded that the motion be sent to a committee for an inquiry.

Ihusan has previously stated that the government decided to lift the ban because the number of Bangladeshi workers had fallen to 90,000, while Saeed promised to investigate the removal of statistics.

The motion comes after the Parliament rejected three out of 22 members of the new cabinet last week. They are:

• Housing Minister Dr. Ali Haidar Ahmed
• Islamic Minister Dr. Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed
• Attorney General Ahmed Usham

The MDP had passed a three-line red whip the day before to reject the three ministers, as well as Economic Minister Saeed. Saeed narrowly survived the vote.

However, they were reappointed to the cabinet within hours of the vote.