Report: Soodh
Although he was a Cabinet Minister, he does not know any information regarding Hill & Knowlton who were used by the government to polish its image, Information and Legal reform Minister Mohamed Nasheed has said.Speaking to press at “Fansavees”, Nasheed said that former Foreign Minister Shaheed did not respond to his questions when he asked about the transactions with Hill & Knowlton.
“Being the Information Minister, I asked Maldives Foreign Minister about it when I heard about it from the media. I asked whether it was a true new. But the foreign Minister did not want to respond. When one Minister asked another Minister from the same cabinet, a question, he did not respond to it. I asked him about it on 19th June 2007” Legal Reform Minister said.
Nasheed said that he asked Foreign Minister about the matter as Maldives press was writing it in their news papers, showing concern.
“Those were days when a lot of angry comments were being written in the blog of Tim Felan, a member of Hill & Knowlton. A lot of Maldives news papers also wrote about it, specially the opposition media. Then only, I began to understand the issue and that is why I asked the Foreign Minister” Nasheed said.
Nasheed said that he asked the former Foreign Minister about it as he have heard that the former Foreign Minister was the one who was practically involved in the transactions. Although the former Foreign Minister did not respond to Nasheed, he said that the people must know about the Hill & Knowlton transactions and it was not confidential information said Nasheed.
“I know this is not confidential information. This was a transaction between the Maldives government and a foreign firm under a contract. So the people should know the details of transaction and about the contract” Nasheed said.
Nasheed also revealed said that he has got some information that the President’s office would soon disclose this information to the people.
Yesterday, Nasheed also talked about the responsibility of the Ministers. He said that any Minister cannot do anything in his office against the law even though anyone tells him to do so. He said that this was against the oath of the Ministers.
When asked about the rumor of alleged corruption of Former Foreign Minister, Nasheed said that he does not want to say that there is corruption in this.
Nasheed said that the government had to acquire services from a PR firm such as H & K as some Maldivians were spreading false information about Maldives. He said that he even knows who they were, but would not tell as they are also now working for reform.
When Legal Reform Minister earlier said that he saw documents which indicated that Dr. shaheed allegedly had illegal transactions with H & K, Dr. Shaheed said that H & K was a public relations firm hired by the government to polish the government’s. He said the government had a contract with the PR firm and that Finance Ministry was the government agency that paid their fees.
Dr. Shaheed on the matter said that he negotiated with Hill and Knowlton by direct command from the President’s office. The president’s office first carried out the transactions but when he was appointed as the Foreign Minister, the Foreign Ministry was assigned the task of doing the transactions. And once H & K sent their invoice to Foreign Ministry all Dr. Shaheed did was to approve that work was carried out as assigned.
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