Hassan Sobir Maldives Corruption Report

SPECIAL REPORT
Daylight robberies by Ambassador Hassan Sobir

Mariyam Mohamed, Male', 31st January 2005

Island Beverages Maldives(IBM) Private Limited on Thursday, 7^th October 2004, opened a mineral water bottling plant in Male. IBM is a joint venture between private company Champa Brothers and Maldives Water and Sewerage Company (MWSC). MWSC has a 51 percent stake in IBM while the remainder is held by Champa brothers.

The Rf10 million bottling plant, set up at the MWSC building in Male, can produce up to 12,000 mineral water bottles on a daily eight-hour shift. The mineral water bottles produced by IBM is branded as "Taza" (Fresh)

MWSC's desalinated water is used as raw material and just by adding minerals, Taza couldn't be any simpler to produce in Male.

So what's wrong with this picture? Clearly it is obvious. It's not like that MWSC can't do a small investment of MRF 10 million on its own. The current Ambassador of Maldives to the United Kingdom Hassan Sobir was the chairman of the Board of Directors of MWSC and this was the only problem with IBM. IBM would have lots of advantages due to their location, a massive property for their factory and storage facilities near the harbour with no rent since MWSC is a shareholder of IBM and the main raw material (desalinated water) is provided with existing MWSC equipment probably free of charge as well. It's like a dream company to be a shareholder of! That's why Hassan Sobir approached Champa Brothers with this excellent deal saying that he will make this project as a joint venture between Champa Brothers and MWSC rather than MWSC doing it alone or going for a public bid with it for a "secret share" of 20%. Champa Brothers may in name hold 49% of IBM but 20% of that is held by yours truly His Excellency Hassan Sobir.

This is not the only scandal Hassan Sobir has been involved in. While he was the Minister of Tourism, he took numerous bribes from various companies in the industry. Huge sums of money were collected from tourist resorts owned by Champa for example for keeping "executive rooms". As you may know, there is no direct tax on resorts but they have to pay a fixed amount of rent per year on the number of guest rooms they have. However, many tourist resorts cheat on this by making ‘guest room standard' staff rooms branded as "executive rooms" which are really just designated to sell to the tourists. Almost every resort has them despite being illegal. Having a few say like 5 is reasonable since they may be used for overbooking or for the directors of the company. But having 20-50 rooms such as these is ridiculous! It's daylight robbery of course!

With the latest rent prices of USD 12,000 and above, if a resort has 50 rooms (100 beds), they would have to pay USD 1.2 million dollars to the government as rent per year. Sobir simply told resort owners that they need not pay these and just pay him USD 200,000 annually, saving resort owners such as champa Afeef millions of dollars a year. This money could have been used for many public services in the Maldives such as Healthcare and education.

In 2001, Club Med was awarded the island of Baa Landaagiraavaru as a compensation island because Club Med's Farukolhufushi island would be needed amalgamated with HulhuMale'. As compensation, Club Med would get to built 400 beds(instead of 200 in Farukolhufushi) in Landaagiraavaru at a low rent of only USD 2,000 per bed annually for a lease period of 35 years if their propose investment was above USD 10 million dollars. However, Club Med did not want any island outside of Male or Ari Atoll due to the distance from the Male' International airport. So rather than the island going for a public bid, Sobir quickly flew to Singapore to meet Mr Ong Beng Seng, the owner of the famous Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL) of Singapore which owns a number of hotels worldwide including Four Seasons Singapore and Four Seasons Maldives at Kuda Huraa. Sobir proposed that for just a small gift of USD 2 million dollars, he could arrange Mr Ong to get Baa Landaagiraavaru. For Mr Ong, this was another excellent deal! In a matter of seconds, Mr Ong accepted the deal and after dining and wining at the Four Seasons Singapore and staying there for a few nights, Sobir came back to Male and did the needful for Mr Ong to get Baa Landaagiraavaru. Landaagiraavaru is now under construction in Baa Atoll and is scheduled to open at the end of this year or early next year. Mr Ong owns the lease and has given the management contract to Four Seasons once again, making him own 3 Four seasons hotels worldwide.

Last year, Mr Sobir teamed up with Athama Ibrahim Abdul Latheef and Ismail Firaq (who is actually more powerful in the Tourism Ministry than even Sobir when it comes to bidding of resorts since his wife is Gayyoom's mistress, oh! Sorry secretary) to get villivaru island resort which went for bid. 24 parties bid for the island, and Mr Sobir and Ismail Firaq made sure that 18 of the heavy contenders were disqualified and Athamaa Ibrahim Abdul Latheef would win the bid. Athamaa Abdul Latheef however, had to pay a high price for his bid although his rent was significantly lower than the others. In return, Athamaa Abdula Latheef would have to give another "secret share" of Villivaru to Sobir and Ismail Firaq of 20% each.

In spite of these dirty dealings, Maumoon decided to relieve Hassan Sobir of his duties as the Tourism Minister and send him as the Ambassador to the UK. Now Mr Sobir is living peacefully in a prime estate in the heart of London on our expense. He doesn't do any work at all, even most of the BBC interviews are done by Dr Ahmed Shaheed and not Sobir. He has made enough money to live a life of luxury for the rest of his life with the money of the Maldivian people and this is how Mr Gayyoom is punishing him! Sobir owns a luxurious property in Malaysia as well. The property in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bought for US$ 100,000 at the Bistari Condominium, 7th Foor of the East Wing (photo right).The luxury flat is bought in his wife's name, Mrs. Aminath Nasheedha (Amtha), Henveiru Ocean Villa.

H. E. Hassan Sobir is a very rich man in deed. He is reported looking at properties in London now.

Mr Sobir proudly opening IBM, producers of TAZA

Mr Sobir(far right) at the opening ceremony IBM with partner Champa(second right) and government minister Aneesa (second left)

Sobir proudly drinking his own product with his partner in crime

Sobir's partner in crime, Ismail Firag (far right) is the longest surviving crook in the tourism industry because of his wife's intimate relationship with Gayyoom. Can't Gayyoom do any better than Ismail Firag's wife?