President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has said that there are attempts within Parliament to put a stop to efforts of eliminating corruption and theft.

The President said this while speaking at a campaign event of Parliamentary hopeful on MDP ticket, Abdul Ghanee at Lhaviyani Kurendhoo. He noted that there are several challenges to fulfilling his campaign pledges and added that there are those that do not believe in and oppose said pledges.

As such, President Solih said that there are attempts within Parliament to put a stop to efforts of eliminating corruption and theft.

He noted that efforts to bring justice to deaths and disappearances had been carried out since the first day of this Presidency. The President said that the attempts to thwart these efforts are being taken on from inside the Maldivian Parliament till this very day. Noting that there are various challenges in fulfilling pledges due to these reasons, he said that there needs to be those that support the President’s efforts in the upcoming Parliament.

While the President has said this, a bill to empower Presidential Commissions have been stalled at Parliament. The Commissions include the Commission on Corruption and Asset Recovery as well as well the Commission on Investigating Deaths and Disappearances.

Several members of Parliament have however refuted that the Bill is in accordance with the Constitution. The Bill has also been sent back to the Parliamentary Committee for revision with the reasoning that the composition of the bill is different from what had been initially passed through the Committee.

The Bill to empower Presidential Commissions had been on the Parliamentary agenda on four different occasions without headway. While the last Parliamentary sitting saw no move to vote on the Bill, it has since been removed from the Parliamentary agenda as well.