Bribery business
This week's sentencing of former Giza Governor Maher El-Guindi to seven years in prison may have far reaching implications for other powerful officials, reports Gamal Essam El-Din
Maher El-Guindi
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On 13 July, Giza's Criminal Court sentenced Maher El-Guindi, a former governor of both Gharbiya and Giza, to seven years in prison and a fine of LE2000. El-Guindi was found guilty of abusing his post by receiving more than LE1 million in bribes and kickbacks. The court said it had no doubt whatsoever that "El-Guindi was implicated in a plethora of bribery crimes."
The verdict confirms the sentence El-Guindi received from a state security court last July. That 2002 sentence was later annulled by the Cassation Court, which ordered a re-trial after El-Guindi appealed. The second verdict had been scheduled for 12 July, but was slightly delayed as a result of parliament's 17 June decision to limit the jurisdiction of state security courts to cases of security, terrorism and drug trafficking. El-Guindi's case was thus transferred to Giza's Criminal Court.
According to the court, El-Guindi would ask businessmen for bribes in the form of jewelry, Italian suits, perfume, mobile phones, boxes of fruit and even fisikh (salted fish), in return for illegal favours.
El-Guindi's case involved two other defendants: Ali Ismail, an official at the Justice Ministry's Illicit Gains Department and Mohamed Foda, a former secretary to the minister of culture. Ismail -- who was accused of receiving a paltry LE150 and some bribes in kind from Foda -- was sentenced to two years in prison and fined LE500. Foda -- who acted as a broker between El-Guindi and a businessman by the name of Amr Heleika -- was sentenced to one year in prison.
According to the court, El-Guindi received hefty bribes -- more than LE500,000 in cash plus other bribes in kind -- for arranging the sale of a 130-feddan plot of land along the Cairo-Alexandria desert highway to Heleika, the chairman of the Pyramids Real Estate and Tourist Development Company. El-Guindi's case first appeared on the radar screens of the Administrative Control Authority -- the government's main watchdog -- in August 1997, just a month after his appointment as Giza's governor.
El-Guindi has the right to lodge a second -- and final -- appeal with the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest judicial authority. If accepted, the subsequent re-trial will take place at the Cassation Court itself.
This week's verdict is believed to have been particularly embarrassing to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture Youssef Wali, who was summoned to testify before the court late last month. Wali defended El-Guindi, denying that the former governor was implicated in the sale of the 130-feddan plot of land to Heleika at a reduced price. Wali surprised the court by claiming that Abdel- Rehim Shehata, another former Giza governor and Cairo's current governor, was actually the official who decided that the land along the Cairo-Alexandria desert highway would be sold at reduced prices.
Wali also denied that El-Guindi had received bribes. According to Wali, El-Guindi "even decided to raise the price of the land from LE51 to LE75 per metre". Wali said the charges against El-Guindi stemmed from a hate campaign that had targeted the former governor ever since he first assumed his position in Giza.
Wali's testimony generated widespread criticism in several opposition and independent newspapers. One of these -- the independent Al-Osbou' -- even accused Wali, who is also deputy chairman of the ruling National Democratic Party, of corruption. The minister responded by lodging a complaint against Al-Osbou' with the prosecutor-general.
Corruption in the Agriculture Ministry has actually been the focus of several court trials this year. The most recent case involved Youssef Abdel-Rahman, senior undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and the 42-year-old chairman of the Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit, as well as several other senior Agriculture Ministry officials. Abdel-Rahman is being tried on 16 counts ranging from abuse of power and profiteering, to misappropriation of public funds (costing the state treasury almost LE20 million in losses), faking official documents, and importing carcinogenic pesticides and toxic chemicals
El-Guindi's case is also the latest in a series of trials of former senior government officials. In May, the State Security Court handed down an eight-year prison sentence to former Finance Minister Mohieddin El-Gharib, after he was found guilty of profiteering and receiving bribes in kind from three importers in return for allowing them to evade payment of LE29 million in custom duties. In June, Osama Abdel- Wahab, chairman of El-Nasr Castings Company -- Egypt's main pipe manufacturer -- was sentenced to 18 years in prison and fined LE77 million for profiteering, facilitating the illegal acquisition of public funds, and squandering LE1.4 billion of the company's money.
Over the next few months, various courts will also be ruling on even more high-profile corruption cases involving MPs, senior banking officials, as well as corruption in the Agriculture Ministry.
