News Desk
Malé, Maldives — In a rare move, the Finance Committee of the People’s Majlis has approved the suspension of Police Commissioner Ismail Naveen and six senior officers, citing alleged corruption tied to the police welfare company, POLCO.
The decision, taken behind closed doors over two days of deliberations, will now be forwarded to the full Parliament for a vote. If endorsed, it would mark one of the most significant disciplinary actions against the upper ranks of the Maldives Police Service in recent memory.
Among those named are Superintendent of Police Ismail Shameem, head of intelligence, and Assistant Commissioners Ahmed Abdul Rahman, Musa Ali, Mohammed Basheer, and Mohammed Daud. Committee members said the allegations involve illicit deposits into family accounts and misuse of state resources. Daud, already suspended earlier this year, has denied wrongdoing.
Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim, who chairs the sub-committee investigating POLCO, argued that allowing the police to probe their own cooperative would be a “conflict of interest,” given that many of the accused remain in senior posts. “There is enough evidence to conduct a criminal investigation,” MP Nazim said, urging the creation of a specialized unit within the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to handle complex financial crimes.
A Pattern of Welfare Societies and Overlapping Mandates
The POLCO scandal has cast fresh light on the network of state-linked cooperatives that manage welfare and housing projects for security services — a system critics say is riddled with duplication, opacity, and opportunities for graft.
- POLCO (Police Cooperative Society): Established to provide housing and welfare for police officers. Its flagship housing projects have been plagued by delays, inflated costs, and allegations of mismanagement.
- SIFCO (Sifainge Cooperative Society): The military’s welfare arm, tied to the Maldives National Defence Force. It has received more than MVR 834 million in state funding for housing projects, raising questions about oversight and accountability. President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu’s inauguration on November 17, 2023, at Republic Square was staged with the involvement of SIFCO and carried a price tag of MVR 22.9 million, according to parliamentary records. The Majlis tender board awarded the contract to SIFCO’s welfare arm, underscoring how these semi-autonomous cooperatives — conceived to provide housing and welfare for security services — are now asserting themselves in the country’s political life.
- PRISCO (Prison Cooperative Society): Formed under the Society Act to support staff of the Maldives Correctional Service. It mirrors the structure of POLCO and SIFCO, offering welfare benefits and organizing annual meetings, but has largely escaped public scrutiny.
Together, these cooperatives operate parallel to formal state institutions, managing billions in assets and projects with limited transparency. Auditors have repeatedly flagged irregularities, including a police housing project in Hulhumalé that cost MVR 1.06 billion — overshooting estimates by hundreds of millions.
ACC’s Expanding Role
The Anti-Corruption Commission has been asked to take the lead in untangling POLCO’s finances. MP Nazim has pressed for the establishment of a Serious and Complex Financial Investigation Section within the ACC, equipped to handle cases involving state-linked cooperatives.
The ACC has already issued notices to POLCO, the Home Ministry, and Customs, demanding explanations for duty-exempted imports — dredgers, tugs, and excavators — allegedly diverted to private projects without tax payments. Customs has been ordered to submit a report within 30 days.
MP Nazim has also called for the recovery of state property lost through POLCO’s dealings, underscoring the Finance Committee’s intent to strengthen the ACC’s mandate.
A System Under Strain
The unfolding scandal highlights deeper structural flaws in the Maldives’ governance of welfare societies. By outsourcing housing and welfare to semi-autonomous cooperatives, the state has created overlapping entities with vast budgets but weak accountability.
For many Maldivians, the revelations reinforce long-standing suspicions: that welfare cooperatives have become conduits for patronage and corruption rather than vehicles for social support.
As Parliament prepares to vote on the suspension of the police chief and his deputies, the case against POLCO may prove a watershed moment — not only for the Maldives Police Service but for the broader system of welfare cooperatives that bind the country’s security institutions.
