News Desk
President Dr Mohamed Muizzu’s government has hit back at allegations made by a former police commissioner, with the Chief Government Spokesperson challenging him to make a formal religious oath if he believes his claims to be true.
The row centres on a compensation payout the Maldivian state was ordered to make to Noomadi Resorts and Residences. Former Commissioner of Police Hussain Waheed—now a prominent opposition figure aligned with former President Abdulla Yameen and running an opposition television station—alleged that President Muizzu’s historical role in the matter was tainted by bribery, saying, according to the initial account, that he could swear to it before God.
Responding in a separate appearance, the Chief Government Spokesperson, Mohamed Hussain Shareef, said Waheed should make that oath formally if he truly believed it, after which state institutions responsible for such matters would investigate.
Speaking on the talk show Pressure with the Spokes, Shareef was more direct still: “Let Hussain Waheed go ahead and swear the oath. I’ll be right there with Hussain Waheed.” He said he was personally certain President Muizzu had done nothing wrong in the Noomadi affair, going so far as to describe himself as living proof of it. Shareef added that President Muizzu was not a man who would compromise his financial integrity-though he strongly questioned Waheed’s own conduct and motives.
The dispute dates back to President Muizzu’s previous tenure as minister of housing and infrastructure, when the government cancelled a housing project awarded to Noomadi after the company failed to deliver on its contract. Noomadi subsequently took the matter to international arbitration in the Netherlands, and the Maldivian state was ultimately ordered to pay the company $55 million USD in damages.
Following that ruling, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) administration of former president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih brought criminal charges against President Muizzu, accusing him of giving false testimony during the 2019 arbitration proceedings that damaged the state’s position. The perjury charges, filed in June 2020, were completely dismissed by the Criminal Court in May 2023, which found the allegations against him unproven and raised serious doubts about whether the disputed 2019 statement could even be reliably attributed to him.
