Majeed agrees PNC membership forms filled inside DNR

The State Minister of the Ministry of Homeland Security, Abdul Majeed Ibrahim on Tuesday has agreed that political employees of the ministry had filled membership forms of ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) inside the office of Department of National Registration (DNR).

The ruling party has been alleged of abusing state resources in inflating the party’s membership, with videos of individuals filling the membership forms inside a government office circulating on social media platforms. The videos also show Minister of Homeland Security Ali Ihusan overseeing the works.

DNR held a press briefing on Tuesday to provide details about its works, where journalists questioned about the now viral video. Majeed said they showed the meeting room during the briefing to journalists, where the forms were filled.

“You are saying that the meeting room is where we had carried out the said task, but as we said the work was carried out in an isolated meeting room,” Majeed commented.

He further noted that media and journalists will have questions amid baseless allegations directed towards DNR.

Majeed agreed that the political employees of Home Ministry had filled over 1,500 membership forms, and said more forms would have been completed if DNR had any involvement.

He said that the ministry consists of 56 political employees who had requested to bring as many forms as possible.

“We had not received any information that any government office had acted politically to increase members,” Majeed added.

He said that investigations by relevant authorities will reveal further information about the incident, if there are serious allegations.

“We hold such briefings to address these subjects. Before the briefing, I mentioned it is about showing the works carried out by DNR. And this is not related to responding to the allegations,” Majeed said.

DNR’s Deputy, Ahmed Aalee, who was also seen in the video, in response to questions said he had attended the office on the day to eat pizza.

“When I visited there, they were eating pizza. Even the pictures would show me eating pizza,” Aalee said.

According to Aalee, though DNR permitted use of its premises through set guidelines, none of its employees were present during the work.

While noting that a copy of the national identity card is needed to fill membership forms, Aalee added that DNR does not keep copies of ID cards.

Amid questions from reporters, Majeed had invited them to come inside the premises to observe DNR’s works and had concluded the briefing. Not long after Majeed left reporters, Aalee had also left amid media inquiries.