The notorious regime in the Maldives would not be able to survive if not for their mutually beneficial relationship with the Maldivian business community. It is the business community that acts as one of the building blocks of the regime, providing them assistance in election campaigns and various social activities. Several businessmen are involved in this partnership with the regime. But the more shocking reality is that the regime not only needs an assurance and support from the businessmen but also the leading figures of the regime are deeply involved in these business rackets. It is becoming very hard to distinguish who is a politician and who is a businessman. The thin line has become increasingly blurred and the collective term for what exists in the Maldives is none other than Mafia.

AMIN CONSTRUCTION: BUILDING THE REGIME

Amin Construction is one of the major construction companies in the Maldives. The main shareholder is Abdullah Mohamed. What will be surprising news for many readers is that he has been using the TV Koshi for more than 7 years for free. This is the large vacant land just across TVM on Ameenee Magu. The accommodation of 450 labourers and 19 senior staff is arranged there. There is a mess room for 450 labourers. There is a kitchen, many vehicles, a crane, 30 concrete machines, a workshop and carpentry inside this compound. All woodworks for construction sites are done there.

The carpentry is called New Waves. Abdullah Mohamed’s warehouse and personal vehicles were also parked in the TV Koshi. The rent for the place would range between 200,000 to 300,000 rufiya per month. In early 2002 the Labour Ministry issued a new regulation under which, in order to get quota for hiring foreign labourers, an agreement was needed with the owner of the place where the labourers stay. To comply with this regulation an agreement was made with TVM. Ibrahim Maniku (Samarey), who was Minister of Information at the time, arranged a rent of 40,000 rufiya for Abdullah Mohamed. It is not clear if Abdullah Mohamed ever paid this rent. This rent was arranged only years after Amin started using the TV Koshi for free.

Amin rented out a small area of the TV Koshi to Albion Store. Previously Amin had taken construction materials from Albion on credit basis for the construction of Hudhufushi resort and Amin owed Rf1.9 million to Albion. To settle this debt, Amin leased the area inside TV Koshi to Albion for 40,000 rufiya. Albion didn’t pay this rent but this was deducted from the amount Amin owed to Albion.

Not only did Amin get a priceless plot of land for its business activities without paying any rent but it also received other benefits from the government. It was no stroke of good luck that Amin was winning all major construction projects of government.

Football Association of Maldives’ Dormitory Center and Turf ground was built by Amin. This project was awarded without any bidding. FAM announced the work for partitioning of its office and the parties which came to get more information about the work were asked to bid for the dormitory project. The major construction companies of Maldives except Amin were not aware of this project. This was a sweet deal offered to Abdullah Mohamed by Samarey who also happened to be the Chairman of Football Association during that time. Most Maldivians know that Samarey has got such influence in government because he is married to Fareesha Ibrahim, the sister of First Lady Nasreena Ibrahim.

Abdullah Mohamed, Amir (Director at Maldives Airports Company) and Ahmed Nazim (Jangiya Nazim, senior staff of MTCC, Member of Parliament for Meemu Atoll) are shareholders of Amin Construction. In every major project of Amin, Amir who is a shareholder of the Infotech company, gets to do works related to Information Technology and telephone network. Namira, which is an engineering company partly owned by Nazim, does all the engineering works.

Amin and Namira’s first link was made during the construction of STELCO building at a cost of Rf72 million. Nazim was a senior employee of STELCO at the time.

When Amin was building the STO Gas Godown, STELCO power was used by Amin during the work. STELCO was not paid for electricity. The project was worth more than Rf500,000. STO Gas Godown, Storage and Boundary Wall were done by Amin. While backfilling the area Amin used saltwater even though the consultant had recommended MWSC water.

Nazim himself arranges bank guarantees for Amin. He has given a loan of Rf900,000 to Abdullah Mohamed. Nazim also gave Rf600,000 to Abdullah Mohamed for a hardware shop investment. In one case Nazim got Rf1.2 million bank guarantee for Amin. He could arrange these things because he has Hidaya, one of the managers of Bank of Maldives, on his payroll. One must not also forget that Abdullah Hameed, one of Nazim’s business partners, was the chairman of the bank till very recent years.

Because of the delay in building Hudhufushi Amin almost ended up bankrupt. Amin was doing the construction work at Hudhufushi which was owned by Abdul Rauf. As Amin had procured materials for construction and it was depending on Rauf to pay, the delay in building Hudhufushi was a huge loss to Amin as well. It had an overdraft of Rf9 million, debts to STO exceeding Rf7 million and debts to MTCC over Rf3 million. Rauf, with his mighty powers, as his daughter is Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s daughter-in-law, saved Amin to some extent, telling STO that Amin will not immediately settle any debts.

Amin has constructed SHE builing, MPA building, STELCO building, Imadhudheen School, Majeediyya School’s new block, CHSE new building and a number of residential buildings. Amin also built the boarding of Maldives College of Higher Education.

Abdullah Mohamed and Abbas Ibrahim, brother of First Lady, are married to two sisters. This explains one reason why Abdullah Mohamed has such influence in the government.

It was First Lady Nasreena’s brother Ilyas Ibrahim who first gave a helping hand to Abdullah Mohamed to grow his business. When the tuna canning factory was built at Felivaru, Ilyas gave projects to Abdullah Mohamed. Today Amin is building Ilyas’ houses and buildings. It is not known if Amin is constructing the great embezzler’s houses for free as a token of gratitude.

Maldives Airports Company’s engineer Mahrin is the civil engineer for Ilyas Ibrahim. He does the civil engineering of all Ilyas’ residences. He is the personal consultant for Ilyas. When the upgrading of Addu Gan airport was put on international tender, the best proposal was submitted by Hojgard and Shultz, a Danish company which also made the harbour of Fuvahmulah. They were disqualified saying their loan repayment proposal was not viable. Lagen, an Irish company was selected as the contractor and their local subcontractor was Amin. It was hardly surprising as Mahrin had arranged the project to be evaluated by Usamath who is also a director of Amin. President Gayoom kept Mahrin at home for 7 days because this scandal was leaked.

These relationships were benefiting all as Mahrin even bought a fake certificate from India through Amin to put his name as a consultant for Airport Phase 5.

When some concrete machines had to be supplied for domestic airports, Mahrin told Abdullah Mohamed to send quotations by three companies. Amin, New Waves and Abja company owned by Gas Abdullah, a relative of Abdullah Mohamed, submitted the proposals for Rf25,000, 30,000 and 28,000. Old machines were sold at prices of new ones for the local airports in 2002.

It was through rogue practices that Abdulla Mohamed became the entrepreneur he is today. Haali Azeez built his house after embezzling money from Maldives Ports Authority. Abdullah Mohamed was part of this scam and did the construction works of the house for Azeez.

For Maldives Monetary Authority building Aima quoted the lowest price. Khadeeja Hassan, the General Manager of MMA, sent it for re-tender. In the re-tender Amin’s price was the second highest but Khadeeja gave the project to Amin. In the construction projects the norm is that after prequalification stage the evaluators must consider price as the main factor and award the project to the party that quoted the lowest price. However, Amin was able to pull off this stunt because Khadeeja was having an affair with Abdullah Mohamed.

Amin also received the project of construction of Maldives High Commission in Sri Lanka without bidding.

Abdullah Mohamed was also the chairman of Maldives Association of Construction Industry last year. He is also the chairman of the committee formed by construction industry about the tsunami recovery.

NAMIRA: SPREADING THE DARKNESS

Namira supplies generator sets to several islands in Maldives. Nazim has a contact in Singapore called Allan. They supply old generator sets with Stamford brand of UK at prices of new generator sets.

When Namira makes the quotation it includes the price for supply, commission and installation of the generators. However, Namira tells island people to do the installation and commissioning. For installation of a 1000 KV generator set the professional charges without accessories is US$2,500. The commissioning charge is US$2,000. Nazim pockets this money. Sometimes STELCO staff are told to do the installation and commissioning. Marufoou from STELCO had to resign after he did not agree to commission a 1000 KV generator set for Addu Atoll. He was aware of the terms and conditions in the documents.

While Namira was doing the wiring for Amin in the STELCO building, cables were taken for the work from STELCO warehouse because Nazim was a senior official of STELCO.

Namira is owned by (Jangiya) Nazim, Red Wave Saleem (Budget Administrator at Atolls Development Ministry), Abdullah Hameed (Minister of Atolls Development) and Ahmed Thasmeen Ali (senior official at Trade Ministry and MP for Baa Atoll).

Nazim’s relations with Abdullah Hameed could have started when Nazim formed a business relationship with the minister’s son Shaheen Hameed to bid for Hakura Hura resort. Even after Shaheen pulled out of the business, after Nazim cheated him and got US$1 million from selling the resort, the relations with Abdullah Hameed continued.

Nazim’s companies include Namira, Tech Media and Neyza. Nazim signs the checks of all three companies.

After Hameed’s daughter Azza had a problem with her husband Maanu, she was living in the fourth floor of Namira building in an apartment. Ministry of Atolls Development paid Rf10,000 per month for the rent of the apartment. Azza and her two children lived there for sometime. This was Hameed and Saleem’s way of paying bonus money to Nazim. The previous lodgers were evicted to provide the place for Azza.

For one particular National Day, national flags were supplied to Atolls ministry. The flags cost Rf15 and 15,000 flags cost Rf225,000 for CIF value. But Tech Media quoted Rf25 for each flag and got Rf1,425,000 for the deal without bidding. An Indian supplier supplied the flags in January 2004. From this deal Nazim, Saleem and Hameed made a lucrative profit. Nazim’s family, mother-in-law and father-in-law went to Colombo, India, Bangkok and Singapore. Saleem went to Bangkok to buy tiles and interior design materials for his house in Henveiru. He went with Mohamed Yoosuf, a civil engineer working at education ministry as consultant.

Nazim also holds shares in a company called Standard.

Twenty-nine generator sets were supplied to Atolls Ministry in 2003 to supply to atolls. Atolls Ministry’s Budget Administrator Saleem gives details of the budget in advance to Namira so their bid fits in the budget.

Clay Engineering is owned by a group of Nazim’s friends and is financed by Nazim. They do welding works and steel works. They did the welding works for STELCO powerhouse tanks. Nazim gets projects and assigns them to Clay. STO fuel storage steel tank at Dhoonidhoo was also done by them. This is an approximately 5,000 metric tonne tank. Namira, Clay and Amin bid for this project. It was agreed in advance to hand over the project to Clay. Even though it cost Rf1.8 million they quoted Rf3 million. The profits were shared among the three groups and Yameen Abdul Gayoom (Trade Minister) and STO Managing Director Mohamed Manik.

CHERISH catering was also a business set up in which Nazim was involved. Nazim, Saleem and Colonel Nazim (Colonel is his nickname, he was not from NSS) were shareholders. Nazim had a share of Rf400,000 and Saleem had shares of Rf300,000. Nazim even issued a loan of Rf800,000 for the business. They got lucrative contracts for feeding NSS staff. Koyya Hassan Maniku was also a shareholder of this enterprise. Because of internal problems and disputes between Colonel Nazim and Saleem, the company got bankrupt.

RED WAVE: RIDING A WAVE OF CORRUPTION

Nazim’s business trips to Bangkok, India and Singapore are partly to bring products and to secure deals for Red Wave.

Red Leaf was run by Eydhafushi Saeed and once when he went to Bangkok and returned the company’s other two shareholders, his two brothers, had conspired and decided to split the business. Saeed got to pay all loans of more than Rf1,600,000 and he received the shop Red Leaf 1. All the rest went to the brothers. It was Saleem who convinced the brothers to do it.

Red Wave was started with funding from Saleem. Obviously it was money from atolls ministry. The Red Wave shops make a monthly sale of Rf16 million. For the first shipment they paid $600,000 from Saleem’s bank account in Bangkok. They own three shops and one more is under construction.

Thasmeen is also a shareholder of Red Wave. In his foreign trips he also brings new product samples. Nazim and Abdullah Hameed are also shareholders. Mainaage in Galolhu was constructed and rented out by Saleem. All electrical works were done by Namira. In Yameen’s house in Galolhu also the electrical panel was installed by Namira for free.

Resort Suppliers (RESU) Yoosuf Qasim (Yoosay) is a business partner of Nazim. Standard company is registered under his and his wife’s name.

Thasmeen and Nazim have rented a house in India to keep sick people from Baa Atoll and Meemu Atoll who goes there for treatment. This is how they plan to retain their seats in parliament. Funaddoo office is also a place where political activities take place. Funaddoo is a fish processing and exporting company owned by Thasmeen. Nazim and Thasmeen went to Bangkok to print all large posters for Gayoom’s last presidential campaign.

Editorial note:
This article was anonymously published in Dhivehi language in Dhivehi Observer. Red Wave Saleem was fired from Ministry of Atolls Development after the article was published. Some of the government positions held by people mentioned in the article have changed during the past two years. President Gayoom’s brother Abdullah Hameed is no longer the Minister of Atolls Development. Ahmed Thasmeen Ali is the current Minister of Home Affairs. Gayoom’s brother Yameen Abdul Gayoom was transferred to Minister of Employment, Higher Education and Social Security from the post of Trade Minister. Ahmed Nazim (Jagiya Nazim) was assigned the post of Minister of State for Employment, Higher Education and Social Security. Recently both Yameen and Nazim resigned from their government posts. Even though Nazim has resigned from government, his close ties with other government officials and their games of corruption are believed to be still in place.

Further reading:
http://www.minivannews.com/news/news.php?id=3355