Speaker of the Parliament and former President Mohamed Nasheed has requested the parliament's judiciary committee to summon Health Minister Abdullah Ameen amid allegations of giving false statements to the parliament.
Speaking at today’s parliamentary sitting, Speaker Nasheed said that the COVID-19 Compliance Audit of the Health Ministry as well as the statements by Auditor General Hassan Ziyath yesterday have proven that the Health Minister has given false information to the parliamentary.
Nasheed said that such cases were investigated by the parliament's judiciary committee and that he had now requested the committee to look into these allegations.
He highlighted the statements given by Minister Ameen in his letter to the parliament regarding the purchase of the ventilators. Citing the letter, the speaker said that as there was a delay in delivering the ventilators from two other companies, the Minister had noted that the ministry had assigned Dubai’s Executor General Trading to procure 75 ventilators under single-source procurement.
Nasheed said that Minister Ameen had insisted that the company was selected based on the recommendations by the WHO office here in the Maldives and in Dubai.
This comes after the compliance audit report highlighted significant irregularities in the procurement of ventilators. It revealed a total of MVR 30.9 million had been in advance to Executor General Trading (Dubai) for procurement of 75 ventilators and that to date no ventilator has been delivered to the country.
In the report, the Audit Office said that it found that the party has been selected to procure ventilators without assessing its financial and technical capabilities.
The Auditor-General recommended relevant authorities to investigate the bidding and awarding of procurement of Ventilators from local parties, in view of lack of fair and competitive bidding.
