MP belonging to the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has today accused party’s Interim Chairperson Moosa “Reeko” Manik of corruption.
Shifaq Mufeed, MP for Fuvammulah Medhu Constituency, spoke in today’s sitting of the Majlis saying that Reeko was a “thief of an Interim Chairperson” who was involved in acts of corruption.
While debating on the Bill on Government Procurement and Acquiring Services, Shifaq said that Reeko’s company transported a number of excavators allegedly to do works for the recently held SAARC Summit in Addu City, and that those vehicles were grounded there without any use, although Reeko’s Heavy Load Maldives was paid full rent for the unused vehicles. Shifaq said that this act of corruption needed to be immediately investigated.
“Our thief of an Interim Chairperson has told us not to talk about the SAARC Summit. However, we need to talk about that. I know that some of the vehicles he rented for SAARC Summit preparation works were simply grounded there in Addu City. One of the directors of the Utilities Company spoke about the matter in my presence, where a number of other MPs from our party. I myself saw the vehicles grounded. If this is true, this means that Moosa took money from the government that is not rightfully his”, said Shifaq.
In an obvious reference to Reeko’s repeated accusation against former President Maumoon of corruption and calling the latter “a thief”, Shifaq said that while a person accuse others of corruption and call others “thieves”, that person should remain clean. “When we open our mouths to call others “thieves”, we should be aware of our own doings. If we are thieves, we don’t possess the right to call others thieves. You can’t just say Hassan Saeed, or Maumoon Abdul Qayyoom is a thief if you are not worthy of such a position of accusation”, said Shifaq.
Speaking in the same tone, MDP’s parliamentarian Ahmed Rasheed, representing Hoarafushi Constituency, said that there is corruption in the MDP government to a dangerous degree.
“I must note that if we want to point at the ousted 30-year regime saying that it was corrupt, then we should be more critical of our own three-year rule. We came to this position with a lot of promises, and now we are being accused, and that is not without reason; indeed, we have passed all limits” said Rasheed.
Rasheed said that senior officials of the government are holding government property with some of them not having paid due rents for long periods.
When called, Reeko said that he had no comments yet about what Shifaq and Rasheed said today.