The parliamentary Public Finance Committee issued a summons to Athif Shakoor, the former head of Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA)'s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), regarding the corruption case of Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC).
Athif is to present himself at the meeting scheduled for 1430 hours next Wednesday, regarding the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC)'s report on the MMPRC case.
The graft watchdog's investigative report revealed that FIU had been negligent in the largest graft scandal in the history of Maldives, which saw over MVR 1.3 billion, acquired via island and lagoon leases for tourism, embezzled from MMPRC through a private company SOF Pvt Ltd.
Tweeting a photograph of the summons he received from the parliament's Secretary General Fathimath Niusha, Athif stated that he had been awaiting an opportunity to share his work in FIU during his seven-month tenure.
FIU is an independent agency under MMA, tasked with probing suspicious activities of money laundering, terrorism financing and obtaining of illegal information. However, ACC in its report stated that FIU had neglected to fulfil its lawful responsibility while state funds were being laundered through SOF.
ACC is currently seeking criminal charges against some top officials of MMA in connection with the case.
The commission had interrogated some senior officials of MMA including its former governor Azeema Adam, in addition to Athif Shakoor regarding the MMPRC scandal.
In his statement, Athif revealed that Azeema Adam had been urged to further investigate the transactions of SOF. However, he claimed that Azeema had objected to filing a police report, with the excuse of lacking sufficient resources and enough members on the FIU team.
Refuting the allegation, Azeema asserted that she had urged Athif to probe all suspicious activities, after he shared with her the 'Suspicious Transaction Report' FIU received on November 27, 2014.
While the parliament is summoning Athif Shakoor for questioning, Galolhu North MP Eva Abdulla also submitted a case to the relevant committee of parliament on Tuesday to summon MMA's Governor Ahmed Naseer, regarding the sudden termination FIU's former head, Abdulla Ashraf.
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