Agriculture minister faces storm
In an unprecedented move, the People's Assembly decided that Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali would be allowed to testify in a high-profile corruption case. Gamal Essam El-Din investigates the implications
While meeting with leading intellectuals last week, President Hosni Mubarak said, "no one in Egypt is above the law. The rule of law," Mubarak said, "must apply to all kinds of officials, whether they are members of the National Democratic Party (NDP) or not, as long as charges are being levelled against them." When it "comes to investigating charges against officials", the president said he does not take into consideration "whether they are relatives or associates".
Political observers said Mubarak's comments seemed to provide a green light for charges against two leading members of the NDP -- namely Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali and Chairman of Parliament's Budget and Planning Committee Ahmed Ezz -- to be investigated.
Wali, 74, has been the target of harsh criticism both in the press and within parliamentary circles over the past few weeks. Not only has the trial of one of his former aides dealt Wali's extensive political career a serious blow, six opposition and independent MPs are about to direct six interpellations (questions that must be answered by cabinet ministers) at Wali as well.
For the past four months, Cairo Criminal Court chairman Ahmed Ezzat El-Ashmawi has thrice ordered Wali to testify as part of a high-profile corruption case involving Youssef Abdel-Rahman, Wali's long-time right-hand man. The 43-year-old Abdel-Rahman -- a former agriculture ministry undersecretary -- is being tried on multiple charges, ranging from abuse of power, profiteering and misappropriation of public funds (to the tune of almost LE20 million), to importing carcinogenic pesticides and toxic chemicals.
Although Wali was supposed to testify as recently as 21 January, the minister rejected El- Ashmawi's request, insisting that he had "nothing to say to the court, and that the prior approval of the People's Assembly must be obtained first". Just one day later, Wali changed his mind. He asked assembly speaker Fathi Sorour for permission to testify before the court, and even sent a 24 January letter to El-Ashmawi, telling him that he was eager to testify on Abdel-Rahman's case.
The case -- the country's highest-profile corruption scandal -- has been a thorn in Wali's side for nearly a year and a half. Abdel-Rahman is the prime suspect among 21 defendants -- including nine other high-ranking Agriculture Ministry officials. One of the case's stickiest issues has been his personal relationship with Wali, a relationship that was so close, Abdel-Rahman said, that Wali gave his associate nearly 30 official posts.
The case has provided Wali's numerous detractors in parliament, as well as the party and independent press, with a golden opportunity to attack the long-standing agriculture minister. These detractors were further emboldened by the fact that Wali was stripped of much of his power when he was dismissed -- in September 2002, when the Abdel-Rahman case came to light -- from his influential post as NDP secretary-general, and assigned the more honourary role of NDP deputy chairman for internal affairs instead.
The parliamentary interpellations Wali is facing are primarily focussed on what his detractors call "cronyism", which they charge has turned Egypt into a "refuse dump" for imports of hazardous chemicals and pesticides. On Monday, Wali was hit by an interpellation by Hamdeen Sabahi, an independent MP with Nasserist sympathies. Sabahi claimed that several land deeds awarded by Wali's ministry to citizens living in Kafr El-Sheikh's Al-Borollos district were illegal.
Observers agreed that Mubarak's comments about "no one in Egypt [being] above the law" were the main catalyst for Wali's change of heart regarding his testimony in court on the Abdel-Rahman case. The agriculture minister had previously argued -- in a 2002 letter to the prosecutor-general -- that not a single carcinogenic pesticide or toxic chemical had found its way into Egypt since he took over the ministry in 1982. Soon after the Abdel-Rahman trial began, however, El-Ashmawi said Wali's letter was not sufficient because "many witnesses agreed that Wali was the one empowered with the sole authority to approve the importing of agricultural chemicals."
On Monday, parliament approved Wali's request to testify. The assembly stipulated, however, that "no criminal charges be invoked against him unless the ... assembly was notified first, and Wali's immunity was stripped".
Informed sources told Al-Ahram Weekly that Mubarak's comments put Wali under massive pressure. "The problem was that if Wali insisted on rejecting the order to testify for a fourth time," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, "it would have been very embarrassing for both the People's Assembly and the NDP." The source also said that if the court found well- documented evidence regarding Wali being the sole authority in the licensing of agricultural chemical imports, the assembly would probably be asked to strip Wali of his parliamentary immunity so that criminal charges could be filed against him. Wali is expected to testify on 25 March.
It is not the first time a court case has caused Wali such a headache. When a Giza court was trying former Giza governor Maher El-Guindi last June on charges of receiving a LE1 million bribe, Wali came to court to testify. Unimpressed by the minister's insistence that El-Guindi was an innocent victim of a larger power struggle, the court sentenced him to seven years in prison. Wali subsequently became embroiled in a slander case against a journalist who charged the minister with providing the court with false testimony.
Ahmed Ezz, the other NDP leader facing heat this week, is being accused by some MPs of exploiting his close ties with high-ranking NDP officials to buy the Alexandria Iron and Steel company in September 1999. As a result, his detractors allege, the 45-year-old Ezz was able to monopolise 65 per cent of Egypt's steel market.
On 11 January, the People's Assembly finally allowed -- after two years of rejections -- 22 questions on iron and steel monopolies to be directed at Ezz and others. One of these charged that Ezz's monopolistic methods had resulted in a 20 per cent increase in steel prices in just two months.
Prime Minister Atef Ebeid also had a surprise in store when he allowed an ad hoc committee to be formed to investigate iron monopolies.
Ezz's detractors -- especially leftist MPs -- want to know why Ezz, originally a civil engineer, was allowed to head parliament's budget committee and chair the NDP's membership secretariat as well as an agriculture committee affiliated to the NDP's influential Policy Secretariat.
Some observers are suggesting that certain members of the NDP's old guard are behind the recent anti-Ezz attacks in parliament. Mubarak himself said he had been closely following the debate, and that he had asked the government to draft the much-delayed anti-trust law so the People's Assembly could approve it as soon as possible. "Egypt is not owned by [just a few people]," Mubarak said.
