A devastating blaze that tore through the server room of the Ministry of Housing has left state auditors entirely unable to verify or account for more than MVR 120 million in public spending from 2023, according to a newly released audit report.
The fire, which broke out on 12 December 2024, ripped through a government complex in the capital housing three separate ministries. The flames completely consumed the Housing Ministry’s main servers, reducing critical financial databases and on-site archives to ash.
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In its compliance audit report covering the period from 2018 to 2023, released today, the Auditor General’s Office revealed that the destruction of financial records was absolute and irreversible.
“At the time of the incident, the ministry had failed to maintain an off-site backup of its financial records outside the premises. Consequently, the documents stored on the server could not be recovered,” the audit report stated.
The absence of off-site data redundancy has triggered a complete documentation blackout for the 2023 financial year.
Among the lost paper trail are records detailing MVR 6.5 million in spending by the Department of National Registration (DNR). State auditors found that vital procurement paperwork, including original tender proposals, bid evaluation sheets, and official minutes documenting Bid Committee decisions, simply no longer exist.
“Auditors did not receive documentation pertaining to MVR 114,205,149 spent by the ministry on salaries and staff compensation. As a result, it was impossible to ascertain whether these expenditures conformed to the Public Finance Regulations,” the audit highlighted.
The December 2024 inferno took several hours to contain, as flames travelled through false ceiling cavities across the interconnected buildings, severely impeding efforts by military fire crews to identify and suppress hidden pockets of fire.
Official police investigations into the incident indicated that longstanding electrical issues had previously been flagged in the Housing Ministry’s Geomatics Department, where the fire is believed to have originated.
