Auditor General's Office (AGO) has said R. Dhuvaafaru Council spent MVR 2,373,969 without a bid committee approval.

Local Government Authority (LGA) highlighted multiple corruption issues with Dhuvaafaru Council. As such, LGA noted that Dhuvaafaru Council had deposited large sums of money into the personal accounts of Dhuvaafaru Council and WDC staff, which is a contradiction to the Public Finance Act. Additionally, large sums of cash had also been handed out to Council and WDC staff without any record keeping, LGA noted. The report also stated that the Council had spent large sums outside of its mandate.

According to the report by LGA, Dhuvaafaru Council's Assistant Director Mohamed Alifulhu deposited MVR 318,600 to be distributed as Zakat into his personal account instead.

LGA had suspended Dhuvaafaru Council's President, Vice President, and Secretary General, and requested AGO to do an audit following the corruption issues at the council.

AGO on Monday publicised their audit report on Dhuvaafaru Council. As per the report, Dhuvaafaru Council had disregarded the Public Finance Act multiple times.

"Council has not followed the bidding and procurement requirements. The Council spent MVR 2,373,969 without a bidding process or a bid committee permit in 2021. As such, it leaves room for corruption," AGO said.

As per the Public Finance Act, if a project is valued above MVR 35,000, the project needs to be opened for bidding, and if a procurement is valued between MVR 35,000 and 5,000,000 it requires approval from the bid committee of the respective office.

AGO stated that the Council's Secretary General needs to be held accountable for not following the Public Finance Act.