The online portal of the previous government’s “Gedhoruveriya” housing scheme was set up to automatically generate points based on information submitted with applications but points were manually added during the approval stage, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has revealed.
The awarding of flats under the scheme was stopped by the ACC, which disclosed some of its findings when members were summoned to Parliament’s independent institutions committee on Wednesday.
The ACC received 325 complaints about the first list that was published after applications were evaluated. In light of the complaints, the commission instructed the ministry to make changes to address the issues.
But the proposed changes were not adequately reflected in the final list, the ACC said, sharing some of the issues that it flagged.
“Marks are generated automatically when information is submitted to the portal. However, even if the marks had been automatically generated, we have noticed that the person who approved or supervised it has changed the marks,” ACC Vice President Abdul Salam said at the committee meeting.
In some cases where applicants were deemed to be ineligible based on the information that was submitted, the points were changed to bring their score up to approval level, Salam said.
“The person who applies writes in the form that he does not have children. The DNR [Department of National Registration] database also shows that he doesn’t have a child. However, we can see problems if marks have been awarded on the basis of having children. It shows that marks have been changed within the portal at some stage,” said Salam, sharing an example.
The ACC also revealed that applicants who do not live in Male’ were awarded flats after they were deemed to be residents of Male’.
Only one or two officials had been involved in approving applications, the ACC said, praising the portal as the best one designed in the country to date. The officials who were in charge of approvals are suspected of wrongdoing and abuse of authority, the commission revealed.
