Public Service Media (PSM), on Wednesday, issued a statement responding to the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC)'s allegations that it disposed of documents necessary for ongoing investigations.
Speaking at the Parliamentary Committee on State-Owned Enterprises on Tuesday, ACC Vice President Muawwiz Rasheed stated that PSM was among the companies which had allegedly disposed of incriminating documents.
PSM's responding statement asserted that ACC did not inform them which documents were unaccounted for.
According to the state media company, ACC's assertions of delays as a result of being unable to recover the documents could be interpreted as an attempt to halt the investigation and file the cases.
PSM also voiced concerns on whether ACC could conduct the investigations justly and in a manner that did not conflict with the interests of commission members.
Despite confirming that it could not locate some documents, PSM also guaranteed its willingness to offer full cooperation to ACC's investigation.
Furthermore, the statement urged ACC to request for or send an investigative team to collect any missing documents which PSM guaranteed would be immediately handed over if they were present within any of its departments.
The current PSM management identified and lodged 20 cases on initiatives of the previous management which facilitated corruption to ACC more than five months ago.
PSM's statement asserted that it had provided ACC with the hard disks and email records of the employees who carried out administrative tasks relating to the 20 aforementioned cases.
Additionally, PSM asserted that it had forwarded requested documents in accordance with ACC's orders which were collected by an investigative team.
ACC Vice President later stated that the missing documents previously mentioned were related to PSM's previous management.
Clarifying that PSM had offered its cooperation, he asserted that ACC had yet to decide to file any of PSM's cases.
According to Muawwiz, ACC had summoned PSM employees and workers of companies which PSM had transferred tasks in order to collect statements in the past week.
However, the ACC Vice President revealed that a former PSM board member had repeatedly failed to respond to ACC's summons and that a court order was requested over the matter.
The state media came under fire for allegedly promoting former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom's re-election campaigns, as opposed to other candidates. PSM faced heavy public criticism for allotting generous on-air time to Yameen free of charge.
Moreover, certain PSM board members are known to have actively campaigned for Yameen, in the weeks leading up to the 2018 Presidential Election.
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