ACC again launches investigation into Nasandhura's 50-year lease
The ACC had previously highlighted several concerns about the deal
The 50-year lease was signed in 2015 under the watch of former vice president Ahmed Adeeb
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has on Tuesday announced that they are to again investigate allegations of graft in leasing out the ‘Nasandhura’ plot for development into a five-star hotel.
The ACC had previously highlighted several concerns about the deal, which implicated senior members of the then government and forwarded it to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
However, prosecutors dismissed the case in August on the basis that the agreement signed then had been valid and that there are no grounds to pursue legal action.
The 50-year lease was signed in 2015 under the watch of former vice president Ahmed Adeeb, who has been implicated in the case and was in April ordered by the government to pay USD 4.8 million.
The ministry held Adeeb responsible for losses suffered due to the ‘unlawful’ transfer of the plot, and another adjacent to it, to under the authority of the state-run Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC).
The ACC’s case files reveal that the plot was then leased to Galaxy Enterprises, a company where former president Abdulla Yameen’s brother-in-law was a shareholder, before being handed over to NPH Investments, another company where the same individual held interests.
Amid the ensuing controversy instigated by the scandal that was the MMPRC corruption, the project has now been given to Zhongtian Construction, a subsidiary of the Chinese Zhongtian Development Holding Group, one of the nation’s largest companies.
The Nasandhura Palace Hotel, which stood in the plot, had been one of Maldives' oldest tourist outlets and is prime real-estate in capital city Malé, sitting exactly in front of the harbour where vessels from the airport dock.
