16 - 22 May 2002
Issue No.586
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 16 - 22 May 2002 Issue No.586 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Clamp down on endemic corruption
Businessmen, a state governor and a number of MPs are all being lined up to face corruption charges at the Supreme State Security Court, reports Gamal Essam El-Din
Companies in the process of being privatised and local councils have long been seen as Egypt's two hotbeds of corruption. A third area, however, has figured prominently in recent years: corruption in the political system.
El-Guindy in the caged dock
Over the last two weeks, allegations of corruption and the abuse of power have been swirling around the country. Several distinguished individuals are under the magnifying glass: a retired board chairman of a major public company, a former provincial governor, two MPs belonging to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and the chairman of an opposition political party.
The allegations were first investigated by the Administrative Control Authority (ACA). All the suspects are now set to stand trial before the Supreme State Security Court.
On 8 May, Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed decided to refer Osama Abdel-Wahab, the former board chairman of Al-Nasr Castings Company (NCC) to trial before the Supreme State Security Court. NCC is one of several public sector companies being prepared for privatisation by the government, a group of companies amongst which corruption is said to be rife. Abdel-Wahab and 30 of his aides are accused of profiteering, of facilitating the illegal acquisition of public funds and of squandering LE1.2 billion of the company's money.
In March, 2001 the ACA, which acts as the government's watchdog institution, reported that Abdel-Wahab -- who was NCC's board chairman for 16 years -- was implicated in a plethora of financial irregularities and corrupt practices. One of the accusations is that between 1993 and 2000, Abdel-Wahab and his company imported huge amounts of unnecessary raw materials from German and French companies against hefty commissions and bribes estimated at LE91 million.
Abdel-Wahab's case is the second high-profile corruption case to mar the reputation of companies on the privatisation list in the last three years. The first one went to trial in August, 1999, when the Supreme State Security Court sentenced Abdel-Wahab El- Habbak, the chairman of the holding company for the engineering industry, to 10 years in jail. He was also fined a hefty $24.6 million.
NCC is itself affiliated to the government-owned holding company for the metallurgy industry.
In an indirect comment on flourishing corruption amongst companies on the soon-to-be privatised list, the man responsible for them, Public Business Minister Mokhtar Khattab, spoke before parliament on 28 April of "a very small number of corrupt officials in this sector."
The Egyptian privatisation programme is one of the most transparent in the world," he claimed.
Khattab argued that the government has become aware of the necessity of creating a new generation of clean and sound public sector managers. Opposition MPs, however, insisted that Egypt now suffers from "systematic corruption among public sector companies slated for privatisation."
"In the last few years, it has become clear that every case that comes to light further exposes a little more a system that breeds corruption at every level of the public sector," said Abul- Ezz El-Hariri, a member of the leftist Tagammu Party.
But it is not just company directors who are being accused of corruption.
On 7 May, the Supreme State Security Court ordered that Maher El- Guindi, who was governor of Gharbiya and Giza between March 1991 and November 1999, be detained pending a verdict to be handed down on 5 June. The ACA started investigating his case in August 1997 -- just a month after El-Guindi was appointed Giza governor. Now El- Guindi, 64, is charged with abusing his former position as Giza governor for receiving more than LE1 million in bribes (both in kind and in cash) in return for which he provided businessmen and investors with illegal favors.
El-Guindi's case is all the more unusual because he is also a former prosecutor-general. He pleaded not guilty and is conducting his own defence.
The scene at his trial was dramatic. In tears, he told the court that as a member of the judiciary he would not have committed these crimes and that the charges were filed against him as an act of pure malice. El-Guindi was in charge of investigating Islamist extremists in the second half of the 1980s. The court began hearing his case on 7 November, 2001.
El-Guindi is not facing charges alone, however. Mohamed Foda, a former secretary to Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, is accused of complicity in El-Guindi's crimes. Foda was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2001, and was also fined LE6.5 million.
Back then, Foda was found guilty of making use of his position and strong ties with El-Guindi to secure illicit gains estimated at LE3.5 million over a year and half. Foda and El-Guindi got to know each other in 1994, when El-Guindi was serving as Gharbiya governor. In his confessions, Foda said: "El-Guindi did not believe it when he was appointed as Giza governor in 1997. At the time, El-Guindi said that this was our golden opportunity to make our dreams come true because Giza is well known for accommodating the offices of Egypt's most wealthy businesses."
Foda is said to have acted as a "broker" between El-Guindi and a businessman by the name of Amr Heleka (chairman of the Pyramids Real Estate Company). El-Guindi is alleged to have taken hefty bribes (including cash, jewelry, expensive Italian suits, Umm Kulthoum cassette tapes and even kebab meals) for arranging the sale of a 130-feddan piece of land, along the Cairo-Alexandria desert highway, to Heleka.
The stink of corruption has reached parliament too, it seems. On 11 May, the People's Assembly stripped two deputies of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) of their parliamentary immunity, so that they can be investigated for corruption charges including forging official documents and facilitating the illegal acquisition of public assets. The two are Bahaaeddin El-Miligi and Hussein Eweiss, both NDP MPs for districts in the upper Egypt governorate of Al-Fayoum.
The requests for the stripping of immunity were submitted to parliament by Justice Minister Farouk Seif El- Nasr. They claimed that the MPs could use their forged documents to obtain as much as LE162 million in compensation from the state, for the lands sequestered by the government in the socialist years of 1960s. El-Miligi and Eweiss are also expected to stand trial before the Supreme State Security Court.
The pair are not the first MPs to face such charges. So far, three MPs have lost their parliamentary membership in Egypt. Two were excluded for holding dual nationality passports, while the third, Fawzi El-Sayed, a construction magnate, was sentenced on 15 January to three years imprisonment after he was found guilty of forging official documents to obtain building permits.
Another MP, Salah Ragab, is currently standing trial on charges of faking official documents to falsely claim he is a graduate of Ain Shams University's Faculty of Education and a member of Al-Ahli Sporting Club. El- Sayed and Ragab are also NDP members.
But allegations of corruption are not only being levelled at NDP MPs. Opposition parties have also begun to take their share. On 22 June, Mohamed Abdel-Al, chairman of the minute Social Justice Party, will face trial before the Supreme State Security Court. Abdel-Al and six of other party members are facing charges of receiving bribes and extortion of businessmen and commercial businesses.
Abdel-Al was allegedly making use of the party's mouthpiece paper, Al- Watan Al-Arabi ("The Arab World"), in 1998 and 1999, to launch extortion press campaigns against two businessmen and the Social Fund for Development (SFD). One of these businessmen is El-Sayed El-Sewerky (who was sentenced last January to seven years imprisonment for charges of polygamy).
Abdel-Al asked El-Sewerky for a payment of LE50,000 in return for stopping the campaign against his activities. Commenting on the case, Abdel-Al said: "I'm the happiest man to face these entirely unfounded charges." The Social Justice Party was frozen in April 1998, but resumed its activities in 2000 by virtue of a court ruling.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page