President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has said that the investigation into Youth Minister Ahmed Mahloof needs to be sped up by the Prosecutor General and that too much time has been spent on it already.

The President made the remarks during a press briefing held on Wednesday. He said that the case has been at the PG Office for over a month and that the case needs to be sped up.

He noted that he had received a letter stating the concerns of Mahloof, and added that the letter mainly stated that there were rules and regulations that were violated when taking the SOF statement.

The PG Office had previously said that they were unsure as to when they will be able to reach a decision on the case. Following their investigation, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) requested to prosecute Mahloof in the MMPRC Corruption Scandal.

The case was first submitted to the PG Office on June 9th. Even though the PG Office initially said that they would make a decision on the case within a week, it was delayed after they had to request for more information from the ACC. The additional information was provided by the ACC to the PG on June 27th.

A statement issued by the ACC noted that Mahloof received USD 33,000 as bribe money to vote in favor of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Bill during his tenure as a lawmaker, and to remain in PPM.

The ACC report further added that Mahloof had traveled from Malaysia to the Maldives on August 27, 2014 to directly vote for the SEZ Bill. The statement further highlighted that based on the evidence gathered, connections were drawn between the cheque deposited to Mahloof's account from SOF and the messages exchanged between Mahloof and Ahmed Adeeb during this time.

ACC also added that even though Mahloof has provided a 'payment received' slip claiming that the money was dollars he had purchased from SOF, there was no evidence found through the investigation that could verify this claim.

They also claimed that the letter from Mahloof explaining that he had paid cash in MVR to SOF in return for the dollars was an attempt to bury the truth. Hence, they had also requested to investigate this matter separately and charge him for providing wrongful information to an official authority.