The Parliament's Public Accounts Committee is looking into the case of a MVR 44 million project being awarded to former Isdhoo constituency's MP Ali Hameed's company North Coast Construction under a settlement agreement.
The Parliament's Public Accounts Committee is looking into the case of a MVR 44 million project being awarded to former Isdhoo constituency's MP Ali Hameed's company North Coast Construction under a settlement agreement.
According to documents obtained by local media outlet Mihaaru, North Coast Construction was awarded a contract to build a six-storey hospital for Aasandha back in 29th December 2016. The project was a MVR 61 million project, and at the time it was estimated that the company would earn MVR 18.3 million from the project with a profit margin of three percent.
Although the project was required to be completed in 15 months, work never started and in June 2017 Aasandha requested the project to be paused due to budget constraints.
The settlement agreement signed afterwards states that the discontinuation of the project caused North Coast Construction a significant financial loss, owing to the company dedicating its time and resources for the project.
During former President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih's administration, the matter was discussed amongst the President's Office, Aasandha and the Economic Council, and a decision made made to offer a 10-storey building construction project of Housing Development Corporation (HDC) in Hulhumalé to the company instead of the original project. With that, the company began formulating the project's concept and determining the project with HDC.
A total of MVR 44 million split into two payments was paid to the company as advance payment for the project.
The matter was discussed during yesterday's Public Accounts Committee meeting, with Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Ahmed Nazim saying that it is a big issue that a MVR 44 million project was awarded to North Coast Construction while the company would have only sustained a loss of MVR 18 million from the Aasandha project being discontinued. He also accused that despite such a big payment being made to the company, no work has yet been done on the project yet.
"Nothing has been done in relation to this. So MVR 44 million has been lost. We also want to obtain accurate information about this. Even if it's something done by the Economic Council, MVR 44 million cannot be lost from the State," he said.
The settlement agreement for the project was signed on 23rd January 2023, and the project was awarded on 7th May 2023. The first instalment of the advance payment amounting to MVR 22 million was made on April 30th 2023.
After the first payment, the design of the 10-storey office building was amended, and the final design was approved by HDC on 15th June. Following this, a land plot was allocated for the project unofficially on July 25th. After this, the second advance payment was made on the 30th of that month.
MP Hameed, who was originally elected as a Jumhooree Party member switched parties to the then ruling party Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) last year as well. However, when multiple members joined the current ruling party People's National Congress (PNC) during December last year, he switched to the party as well.
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