The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) said on Tuesday that it has filed a corruption case against Mohamed Shifau, former managing director of Waste Management Corporation (WAMCO), with the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Shifau was accused of hiring a local firm to build software for WAMCO for more than MVR 1 million without a competitive bidding procedure.
According to the ACC, the former managing director of WAMCO had hired Noni Solutions Pvt. Ltd. as an emergency request, without an open tender, to create a customer relations management system (Veshifaara software). Shifau was said to have personally monitored the project’s administration and to have a strong connection with the proprietor of Noni Solutions.
The commission further said that project specifics were not provided to the procurement department, as is legally required for emergency requests, and that the request was not revealed to the logistic and management department or the WAMCO board.
The ACC also discovered that, despite the fact that the contract was granted as emergency work, the “emergency circumstance” was not properly stated as required by Article 8 of WAMCO’s Procurement Policy. Shifau, according to the ACC, violated WAMCO’s rules for procuring services for the firm in 2017 when he negotiated a deal with Noni Solutions to develop the software.
Furthermore, the commission’s inquiry found that Shifau signed the contract between WAMCO and Noni Solutions, and that several money transfers were conducted from the bank account of Noni Solutions’ owner to Shifau’s bank account after the contract was signed.
The ACC stated that Shifau exploited his official power to provide the owner of Noni Solutions an unfair advantage, and that they had urged the Prosecutor General’s Office to charge him with misusing official authority under Section 513 of the Penal Code.
