Fathimath Mohamed Solih’s asset declaration document temporarily disappeared off the President’s Office’s (PO) website yesterday. It had been changed and reposted on the site later in the day.
Fathimath Solih, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s sister, serves as a Secretary at the Presidential Secretariat and Protocol department in the PO. The asset declaration document had been included in the webpage on 9 November 2020.
The original document, prior to the change, had listed a building worth MVR 20 million. In addition, it reported a sum of MVR 700, 000 in her private bank account.
The amended document, that currently appears on the website, does not contain this information.
Earlier this past week, it came to light that Aishath Mohamed Solih, also President Solih’s sister, had received a Hiyaa housing unit.
The Hiyaa housing programme had been a construction project of 7,000 housing units initiated by President Yameen Abdul Gayyoom. The units had been distributed by the end of his term. However, President Solih cancelled the housing unit allocations, claiming that there had been “corruption” in the distribution process. He established a Flat Committee to revise the allocations.
The final revisions of the Flat Committee were published this week. The Commoners’ Friendship Association, a local NGO, claimed that roughly 3,700 poor people who live in squalid conditions who had received a housing unit under the previous administration had now been removed by the Flat Committee from the final list.
President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s family is very wealthy, and their father had been one of the wealthiest men in their home-atoll of Faadippolhu.