An announcement made on June 26 to seek a foreign CEO for the government-owned Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) has been cancelled.
The announcement was cancelled because no eligible candidates applied for the post, the Privatisation and Corporatisation Board (PCB) said in an announcement gazetted today.
The deadline for interested candidates to submit their CV, certificates and reference letters passed at 2 pm yesterday.
Before the cancellation, the only candidate who publicly announced his intention to seek the job was former MIFCO managing director Athif Shukoor, who also previously served as the company's deputy managing director and head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) at the central bank.
The announcement seeking a new CEO for MIFCO came after the PCB dismissed former CEO Ahmed Shamaah on May 21 over allegations of wrongdoing. The dismissal came after he was suspended on two occasions.
The allegations against Shamaah included hiring friends and relatives for company jobs and misusing company resources. But Shamaah denied any wrongdoing in March when he was summoned to Parliament's State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Oversight Committee along with the PCB.
Contrary to campaign pledges, the government recently reduced MIFCO's fish purchasing price to MVR 16 per kilo due to the loss-making company's inability to clear outstanding payments owed to fishers. But the government came to power claiming to have a plan to keep a floor price of MVR 20 per kilo.
