Nairobi (Reuters/NAN) A commission of inquiry said 100 million dollars in revenue realised from a programme to sell Comoros Islands citizenship to fund development, are missing.
Nearly a decade ago, Comoros launched a programme with the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait to sell citizenship to stateless people in those countries, known as Bidoon, in return for cash to help develop the poor Indian Ocean archipelago.
According to a report by the parliament, former presidents Ahmed Sambi and Ikililou Dhoinine, who were in power when the alleged abuses took place, were “suspected of the embezzlement of public funds.”
The commission said the programme was flawed from its inception and the current Comoros government should seek international help to recover the missing funds and take officials involved to court.
In a video posted on Facebook, Sambi rejected all accusations against him, saying they had been fabricated to discredit him. He didn’t respond to a request for further comment.
Ikililou told Reuters by telephone that he could not comment on the report as he had not read it yet.
Both men have previously said they believed the scheme would help develop the country, an archipelago off the east coast of Africa.
The report was completed in December but has not been publicly released.
Reuters has reviewed a copy that was signed by Dhoihir Dhoulkamal, head of the commission and an independent member of parliament.
Abdallah Djohar, a Sambi supporter initially on the commission who later called for it to be disbanded, said the report had not been officially approved by the entire commission and its disclosure violated procedures relating to how the commission should operate.
The current Comoros government, led by President Azali Assoumani, has said it has suspended citizenship sales since coming to power in May 2016.
The cross-party commission found that the law allowing the sale of citizenship was changed during a parliamentary session that violated its own procedures.
The bill that was promulgated lacks the correct signatures and stamps, and does not officially figure on a list of laws passed by the National Assembly, the commission found.
Critics of the passport programme also called for more transparency over revenues from the Gulf after promised development projects failed to materialise.
While most of the passports were sold to Bidoon, Comoros and Emirati officials said a number of passports had also been sold to other foreigners.
A Reuters investigation published in 2017 found that two Iranians accused by the U.S. government of breaking sanctions were among those who bought Comoros passports via the networks that sold documents outside the official programme.
The parliamentary commission estimates that the overall sum of government revenues from the passport sales to have gone missing amounts to around 17 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in one year.
The commission said that the secrecy of contracts, lack of documentation and variety of groups of officials involved in passport sales complicated efforts to establish how much money went missing.
However, by analysing the number of passports issued without official approval and the shortfall in revenues from those sales that were approved, the commission estimated an overall revenue gap of about 43 billion Comoros francs (100 million dollars).
“The economic citizen programme generated significant financial resources. Sadly a big part of the funds generated never arrived in the state coffers,” the report concluded.
The commission’s report is due to be debated in parliament when the next session begins in April.
A spokesman for Assoumani said that the president had not yet received a copy but the president would analyse the findings.
“If some people are found to have embezzled money or broken the law, there is no doubt that steps will be taken to establish who is responsible,” Mohamed Ismaella, Assoumani’s spokesman, said.
