The Budget Committee of the Parliament of the Maldives has decided to increase the budget allocated for Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) for 2022, to facilitate the hire of additional staff.
The budget committee is currently reviewing the state budget proposed by the Ministry of Finance for the year 2022. The budget committee decided to increase ACC’s budget, following concerns raised by the President of ACC Mariyam Shiuna on the human resource difficulties faced by the commission.
The ACC president noted the commission currently takes an average of 8 months to complete the investigation of a single case under the corruption scandal of Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC). She said the budget provided to ACC is not adequate to carry out investigation of such cases efficiently. Following these concerns, the budget committee decided to add USD 252,000 to the budget allocated to ACC.
During the review of the state budget, the budget committee has added a total of USD 4.7 million across Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) projects and the budget allocated for state institutions. The committee has passed a final budget of USD 2.4 billion.