ACC to take legal action over state's failure to recover MVR 50 million

Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has announced that it will be taking legal action against state institutions over failure to recover over MVR 50 million ordered by the commission last year.

In a press release issued by the commission, it was detailed that a total of MVR 50,370,512.75 was ordered to be recovered following the investigations carried out in 2023.

The statement highlighted 10 specific cases which includes big state-owned enterprises such as Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) which was ordered to recover MVR 40,475,200.00, Maldives Transport and Contracting Company (MTCC) which was ordered to recover MVR 8,481,000.00 and Fenaka which has MVR 1,389,342.00 to recover.

However, none of the funds notified to be recovered in 2023 have been received by the state as of yet, the press release reads.

Highlighting that ACC's responsibility is not to recover funds in cases were discrepancies are discovered following investigations, but to notify government institutions to recover the funds, the commission said that in 2022 a dedicated system was established to determine the how much effort institutions put into recovering such funds.

"It [is to be] noted that in monitoring the extent to which the agencies have complied with this system, legal action will be taken in this matter as government agencies have not put in sufficient effort [to recover the funds]," the statement concluded.

A total of 1,151 complaints were submitted to ACC last year. Out of this, 650 were registered and 501 were dismissed. A total of 16 cases, addressed to 29 parties, were forwarded to the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO).

The total value of all complaints escalated to the PG office amounts of MVR 4,704,345.95 million (USD 305,239.78), out of which the state's claims totals MVR 4,554,345.95 (USD 295,164.27).

Most of these claims involved government enterprises and institutions, which totals to 209. ACC also received 190 complaints concerning Ministry of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure.

ACC's data also revealed that 61 cases were pending at duty prosecution as of 2023.