A separate inquiry will be launched into alleged attempts to unfairly award flats from the previous government’s ‘Gedhoruveriya’ scheme to chosen recipients, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has said.
According to a presentation on the findings of the ACC’s inquiry made during a press briefing yesterday, 60 percent of applicants approved for flats did not meet the eligibility criteria.
ACC President Adam Shamil said a separate criminal inquiry will be conducted to determine whether corrupt practices such as providing undue benefits to particular persons had been involved in the former Housing Ministry’s decision to award flats to ineligible applicants.
A joint investigation into alleged falsification to authorities will also be conducted with the police over false information provided in application forms, he said.
“Seven senior officials who had been in charge of the work then have already been summoned. In addition, summoning more people is ongoing to gather information needed to determine whether offenses involved in this that fit the standard for crimes, crimes such as obtaining undue benefit, had been committed,” Shamil said.
The majority of cases where ineligible applicants were wrongly approved concerned the submission of documents to prove Male' residency as required by section 3(c) of the evaluation rules. In cases where a single document either from the residence or council offices were submitted, applicants had been deemed eligible based on the legal weight accorded to the documents.
Offering an example of such a case, an ACC official said information from the Pension Office proved that an applicant who submitted documents claiming to reside in Male' had worked for many years at an island council. However, the applicant had been deemed eligible under the criteria for Male' residency and included among the flat recipients.
In similar forms, documents claiming employment at a company before its registration had been deemed valid in order to determine eligibility. In other cases where the main applicant had been placed on the Male' special municipal registry or a household registry after 2013, applicants were deemed eligible without confirming their residency in Male' for 15 years.
After the evaluation of submissions under the scheme, a provisional list released on August 8 last year included 15,046 applicants who were deemed eligible. The previous government decided to provide flats to all eligible applicants. However, construction had started on 4,000 flats at the time.
After the government decided to hand over the first flats to applicants who scored the highest points, ACC ordered a halt to the process over a complaint submitted to the commission. After investigating the case upon securing access to the submission portal created for the scheme, the commission authorized the process to resume last Thursday.
