The activities surrounding Al- Aman group and its subsidiary, the Al- Aman World Capital Centre (WCC), the constructors of “The Tallest Building in Asia” in Colombo, Sri Lanka are rife with suspicion.
Al Aman signed a USD $2 billion agreement with Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment (BOI) on June 30, 2017 to build the super-skyscraper in Colombo.
The alarm bells sounded early; Al Aman bills itself “a globally renowned chain with its operations spread across the world.” However, investigations by the Daily News found that there were no records of Al Aman offices outside of Sri Lanka except for one in the United Arab Emirates. The investment into Sri Lanka is billed as a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). However, the group’s head office is located in Sri Lanka. The group’s website provides one office in the United Arab Emirates with the location provided as No.709, Shk.Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktom Street, Ajman UAE.
Repeated attempts found no projects that have been completed by the group. The subsidiary, Al Aman WCC, has all listed future projects within Sri Lanka, despite boasting of an international portfolio. The projects include Aman 101- Royal Empire and Aman Royal Island, in addition to the proposed World Capital Centre.
Descriptions for ‘Aman 101-Royal Empire” include “Aman 101 – Royal Empire is a proposed iconic development, strategically located on the Northern Colombo coastal area of Sri Lanka in close proximity to the central business district of the commercial capital.
This landmark will be of 101 floors comprising luxury hotel rooms, apartments, retail outlets and entertainment facilities.
The Aman Royal Empire will be a self-contained oasis luxury with a state of the art Business Center, premium office spaces and Banquet facilities”.
Description of the Aman Royal Island include “Aman Royal Island will be an above par 5 star hotel and apartment project to be developed off a peninsula in the island of Mandaitivu, Jaffna on the Northern shores of Sri Lanka. The facility aims to provide all modern facilities in a state of the art 37 storied building apart from equally luxurious residential and entertainment options spread across the site".
The Group boasts ownership of seven other companies in addition to Al Aman WCC including a consultancy and a media corporation. However, none of these companies exist with any sort of paper or digital trail except on a single website, www.alamangroups.com, which is seemingly a hurried construct.
On that website, Al Aman presents contradictory claims: that its business has been around for “five generations,” and that it was founded in 2001. As if these two contradictions were not confounding enough, a search of the history of Al Aman World Capital Centre (WCC) Ltd. reveals that it was not incorporated until 6 October 2015. Most concerning, these same records reveal the company was dissolved earlier this year, on 14 March 2017.
When the Daily News revealed this to Board of Investment Chairman Upul Jayasuriya, he said this was the first time he was hearing of the discrepancy with the dates. The Daily News is yet to confirm if the holding company or any other of it subsidiaries are registered in Sri Lanka, the location of its head office.
The inconsistencies continue. Al- Aman group earlier claimed that the architect for the WCC project is an architectural firm named RSP, a firm located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Daily News thereafter contacted the firm in Kuala Lumpur. Speaking to the Daily News, Emily Cheng, Manager of Public Relations and Communications for RSP-KL, said; “As far as I’m aware, we are not and have never been the architects for this project,” completely contradicting the claims by Al- Aman group. When asked about this, Mr. Jayasuriya said he was unaware that RSP-KL was never involved.
The proposed location of WCC has also raised concerns. Al Aman has repeatedly claimed that WCC will be based in Colombo 2; though officially, in any press release, it has stated that a location for the super-skyscraper is yet to be determined. However, when the Daily News contacted the number listed for Al Aman’s Colombo office, a spokeswoman said the location has been determined. Accordingly she said No. 60 Davidson Road, Colombo- 4 has been identified as the location. When asked when construction would begin, the same spokeswoman responded, “next month,” even though Al Aman has only brought in US $2 million of the US $200 million required for the BOI not to terminate the project, according to the Board of Investment (BoI) of Sri Lanka. Further investigations revealed that the photographs used by Al- Aman WCC to promote the construction of the building are plagiarized. The photos of the interior of the proposed construction which include an individual indoor car park, a pool, and the spa are all plagiarized. The Daily News can confirm that the photos respectively have been plagiarized from “The Landseer,” a residential development in London; an underground “ doomsday” bunker hotel in Germany; and the “Pangkor Laut Resort” in Malaysia.
The claims made by the company regarding the proposed construction are also suspect.
At various instances, Al Aman has promised that WCC will be the 9th, 7th, 5th, and 3rd tallest building in the world upon completion.
Further investigations revealed a letter, purportedly signed by the former Minister of Finance and Treasury, and current Vice President of Maldives Abdulla Jihad, to the group granting Al Aman permission to import and export money from the Maldives, purportedly without restriction. In the letter, signed on 8 December 2015, then Minister Jihad in a letter addressed to the Al Aman World Capital Centres, Managing Director said.
“We hereby authorize that Mohamed Saleem Mohamed Imran Representative Managing Director (hold of Sri Lankan passport No: N3363800) of Al Aman World Capital Center, to authorize to import legal currency for deposit in a local bank in the Republic of Maldives, for legitimate purpose and investments. There are no restrictions of any kind whatsoever on either the inward shipment of monies or the outward remittance of foreign currency.... We further confirm the guarantee that monies shipped to Republic of Maldives will be under strict secrecy and the Maldives National Defense Fund will provide all necessary security; no information will be disclosed to any foreign governments or agencies.”
Investigations revealed no projects under Al-Aman group or its holding companies in the Maldives.
Imran Saleem is listed as the Managing Director of the Company. Azaid Ahmed is listed as the Chairman of the company, and Lakshman Benedict Perera is listed as Deputy Chairman. Speaking to the Daily News, the BOI Chairman repeatedly claimed that the BOI had to give Al Aman the benefit of the doubt. “The best that we can do it just to wait and see,” he said.
When asked if any action would be taken against Al Aman for the fraudulent and shady claims it has made thus far, Mr. Jayasuriya responded, “Not now. We have to wait to see if they can bring in the money.”