Speaker Abdul Raheem Abdulla received close to MVR 1 million in “gifts” from benefactors in the one year since he was elected to head the Parliament, according to the information in his financial declaration.
The Parliament publicized the financial declarations of parliamentarians on Tuesday night, covering the one-year period from May 28, 2024 and May 27, 2025.
According to Abdul Raheem’s declaration, he received MVR 958,982.48 from various benefactors over the course of one year. It comes down to over MVR 79,900 per month.
Abdul Raheem, the chairman of the ruling People’s National Congress (PNC), declared the money as gifts he received from benefactors for travel and credit card payments.
He also received MVR 658,894.95 in salaries and allowances over the one-year period, which comes down to around MVR 59,400 per month.
He also has only a single bank account registered to his name. The savings account at the Bank of Maldives (BML) had a balance of MVR 101,698.21.
He has no other income declared.
As for assets, Abdul Raheem owns an MVR 5 million house in his home island of L. Fonadhoo, and an MVR 4.5 million apartment in Male’ City, which was purchased in 2017, during former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s administration. He declared that the money for the apartment came from his savings, from benefactors, and from loans.
He also owns an MVR 3.5 million boat named ‘Arafa Express’, and an MVR 67,000 motorcycle.
He has no other assets declared, and nor does he have any loans or other debt.
Abdul Raheem had once been seen as President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu’s closest aide, playing a crucial role in getting him elected to power in 2023, and in the early days of his administration.
Abdul Raheem's son, Ibrahim Faisal had been among the original appointees to President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu’s cabinet on November 17, 2023. He was dismissed from his role as tourism minister on January 28, for reasons that the President’s Office has not disclose.
In an interview to a local media outlet that day, Abdul Raheem, who had been on vacation in Malaysia at the time, publicly admitted to frayed ties between him and President Muizzu for the first time, commenting that “obviously this wouldn’t have happened if we were on good terms.”
But he made no further public comment regarding the decision after that, but was visibly absent from many of PNC’s events – up until his call on President Muizzu at his office in February - which had marked the first face-to-face meeting between the top leaders of the PNC since Faisal's dismissal.
Faisal’s dismissal followed monthslong rumors of friction between the President Muizzu and Abdul Raheem – once seen as his most powerful ally, having played an instrumental role in his successful 2023 presidential campaign.
Less than a week after Faisal’s dismissal, Mohamed Wajeeh, the father of Abdul Raheem’s son-in-law and legal affairs minister at the President’s Office Hisham Wajeeh, was dismissed from his role as the managing director of Maldives Ports Limited (MPL).
Abdul Raheem previously described his efforts to get President Muizzu to office as “the hardest but most successful” work of his long political career.
After President Muizzu took office in November 2023, he appointed Abdul Raheem as his special advisor. But Abdul Raheem later resigned from the role to successfully contest the 2024 parliamentary elections, in which the PNC won a supermajority of seats in the Parliament. It had been President Muizzu himself who recommended him to the role of Speaker of Parliament.