A police team has been deployed from Male’ to Thinadhoo in the GDh. Atoll to investigate allegations that the island was granted city status in 2023 by artificially inflating its residential population.
Thinadhoo was designated as a city on August 30, 2023 by then-president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih during the 2023 presidential campaign. The incumbent administration decided it would not revise the decision.
But a year later, allegations emerged that that the actual population of Thinadhoo is under 10,000 people – which is the legal requirement for an island to be designated a city.
The allegations stem from discrepancies in the population list maintained by the Thinadhoo Council and the Department of National Registration (DNR), with the latter declaring the population of Thinadhoo as 7,924, while the former places the population at 10,150.
The Thinadhoo Council has been accused of artificially boosting the population by including the names of at least 115 deceased individuals as well as people who had removed themselves from the island’s registry decades back to the list.
Sun has been informed a police team from Male’ is now in Thinadhoo to investigate the case.
When questioned about this, a police spokesperson responded that the police had been mobilized in response to the case, but declined to say more.
In November 2024, Ahmed Raghib, a former magistrate, filed a constitutional case with the High Court challenging Thinadhoo’s city status.
However, the case was rejected in December 2024, citing lack of original jurisdiction to hear the case.
The issue was also raised by North Thinadhoo MP Saudhulla Hilmy with the Local Government Authority (LGA) and the Parliament.
Thinadhoo City Mayor Saud Ali. (Photo/Thinadhoo Council)
The figure at the center of the allegations is the city’s mayor Saud Ali, who is accused by Saudhullah of committing serious criminal offenses.
Saud also has a complaint filed against him with the LGA by Raghib, accusing him and other councilors of taking salaries prescribed for council members of cities even before Thinadhoo was granted city status.
Saud has denied the allegations against him, maintaining that Thinadhoo received city status in accordance with the law.
He accused Saudulla of having a personal vendetta against him, and of being a “traitor” to the people of Thinadhoo.
Saudulla has said that while he wants Thinadhoo to become a city, he cannot turn a blind eye if it is done through illegal means.
In January, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) launched an investigation in response to a complaint against Saud for alleged corruption in the award of a contract to build a monument at the city’s harbor.
The Thinadhoo Council stirred controversy that month when it described the ACC investigators who raided the council office for the investigation into the case as “looters”, even filing a police complaint for theft.
The commission subsequently issued a statement slamming the allegations as “lies”, and accusing the council of failure to cooperate with the investigation.