Main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) led move to oust Minister of Homeland Security and Technology, Ali Ihusaan failed as the Parliament rejected the no-confidence motion against him.
The motion supported by a dozen MDP lawmakers had made several allegations against Minister Ihusaan.
During Tuesday’s sitting, Minister Ihusaan had responded to each of the allegations listed in the motion individually while rejecting them as baseless and without merit.
Responding to the allegation of influencing and interfering with Police investigations, especially against officials of this Administration, he pointed out the numerous ongoing investigations into government institutions and state-owned corporations as clear evidence of complete Police independence.
In that regard, the Minister listed the ongoing Police investigations into the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), Fuel Supply Maldives (FSM), Maldives Correctional Service (MSC) and the Ministry of Construction, Housing and Infrastructure as examples.
"If I interfere or influence the Police, all the leaders of the previous government will be in jail. They are still free because I do not exert political influence. Not because they’ve done nothing wrong. Police are conducting its investigations at its own pace. It's going at the speed it goes. Police will do so within its legal authority. We [government] will not exert influence or interfere as it should be,” he explained.
MDP’s motion had also alleged Minister Ihusaan’s direct involvement in misusing the Department of National Registration (DNR) database to fraudulently increase the membership of the ruling People’s National Congress (PNC).
The Minister rejected the allegations as completely baseless pointing that this Administration has now digitised the entire political party membership registration process where successive governments had failed.
He was referring to the recently amended Political Party Regulation mandating political parties to submit membership registrations through its online ‘Simedha’ portal. Submissions to the portal would need to be made using the national digital identity ‘efaas’.
The other allegation against Minister Ihusaan is his decision to re-implement a contract with a foreign firm to replace the Expat Online System used in the management of expatriate workers in the Maldives.
With documents in hand, he explained that the then government in 2016 had signed a contract with the Malaysian company Bestinet Sdn Bhd to develop the online system.
However, the MDP government in 2019 had terminated the contract after the firm had invested USD13.4 million in the project, he explained.
According to Minister Ihusaan, the then government had ignored numerous correspondences by the firm seeking USD13.7 million in compensation for the abrupt termination of the contract.
So this Administration had made a calculated decision to re-implement the contract without wasting such a substantial amount in compensation for a much better online system.
Additionally, the minister highlighted that the current government's agreement with the Malaysian company is expected to generate USD58.6 million, a substantial increase from the USD39 million previously received from the Expat Online System.
“So when you accuse me of losing USD449,237 for the State, I would say the State is actually earning USD19.6 million more every year,” the Minister added.
Minister Ihusaan said he would seek a criminal investigation through the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) against senior officials of the previous government liable in the complete negligence of the whole expat system contract which could have cost the State such a significant amount in compensation.
"[MDP] Members are right about one thing. If someone does something detrimental to the State, the case must be investigated. So I will ask the ACC to conduct a criminal investigation against all the former government officials for neglecting this issue,” Minister Ihusaan said.
The Parliament later rejected the no-confidence motion with 64 lawmakers voting in favour of Minister Ihusaan with only 11 against.