The Prosecutor General’s Office has been asked to press criminal charges against Dr Fathimath Amaany Naseer, a consultant paediatrician at Addu Equatorial Hospital, alongside three administrative colleagues, following an Anti-Corruption Commission investigation into the procurement of laboratory supplies at heavily inflated prices.
The referral marks the latest blow to the regional hospital’s governance, coming on the heels of a scathing state audit that exposed systemic procurement breaches, multi-million-Rufiyaa overspends, and vendor-funded overseas trips for procurement staff.
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According to ACC, the corruption charges stem from a public tender floated by the hospital last year to secure four months’ worth of laboratory consumables for the main facility and its satellite health centres across Addu Atoll.
The inquiry focused specifically on the purchase of 40,000 micropipette tips, specialised disposable nozzles used by lab technicians to transfer precise volumes of liquids such as blood samples and chemical reagents.
Investigators discovered that although only a single supplier bid for the contract, the hospital failed to benchmark the quoted rates against prevailing market prices.
In direct breach of state public finance regulations, the procurement went ahead at exorbitant costs. Dr Amaany faces prosecution for her role as a sitting member of the hospital’s Bid Committee that approved the transaction.
The commission also sought charges against three administrative officials: Procurement Head Mohamed Saain Ahmed, Senior Healthcare Administration Officer and Bid Committee Chairperson Azeem Latheef, and Senior Customer Relations Officer and Bid Committee Member Abdulla Waheed, all natives of Hithadhoo.
Investigators recommended charging all four under statutory provisions concerning the abuse of official authority and acting in a manner detrimental to state interests where a financial advantage should have been secured.
The criminal filings land amid wider revelations of institutional mismanagement at the hospital.
A compliance audit recently released by the Auditor General’s Office revealed that between 2022 and 2024, the institution routinely flouted public procurement guidelines, bypassing competitive tenders and overpaying hundreds of thousands of Rufiyaa for basic goods and services.
In one instance involving an exterior tile replacement project, the hospital disqualified the lowest bidder on a technicality, claiming unit prices were omitted even though the tender comprised a single line item. The contract went to the second-lowest bidder for MVR 1.28 million, costing the state MVR 577,681 more than the initial offer and over a million Rufiyaa above internal cost estimates.
In 2022, the hospital spent MVR 827,860 on design and Environmental Impact Assessment services for an extension wing and a waste management facility.
Despite work overrunning the contractual deadline by 228 days, management waived MVR 116,070 in liquidated damages and paid the contractor in full, even though neither project had broken ground years later. Similar waste emerged in fleet management; after a vendor defaulted on delivering an administrative van, the hospital bought a replacement from the runner-up for MVR 1.38 million, paying MVR 583,000 above the original award instead of retendering.
Auditors also uncovered a two-year air-conditioning maintenance deal worth MVR 7.97 million that was cleared by the hospital’s internal committee without statutory sign-off from the National Tender Board. Servicing 68 units under the contract cost taxpayers over a million Rufiyaa, far outstripping the combined replacement value of the machinery itself. In another case involving dental supplies, administrators proceeded to purchase four orthodontic items for MVR 450,685 despite internal evaluators flagging them as grossly overpriced, paying MVR 173,663 above rival market bids.
Beyond procedural shortcuts, state auditors identified compromising financial ties between hospital staff and private suppliers. Between 2022 and 2024, commercial vendors paid MVR 755,785 to fund hospital staff trips to overseas conferences, seminars, and corporate junkets. Beneficiaries of this corporate sponsorship included senior finance officials, procurement personnel, and sitting Bid Committee members. The audit warned that accepting such perks compromised institutional impartiality, noting that several vendors that financed overseas staff travel went on to secure lucrative hospital supply contracts.
