Parliament helps the police

In an unprecedented move, a leftist MP was barred from participating in parliamentary meetings on charges of slandering police officers and high-ranking state officials, Gamal Essam El-Din reports

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During a stormy meeting on Tuesday, the People's Assembly agreed that Saad Abboud, a maverick independent MP with leftist leanings, be stripped of the right to attend the assembly's meetings beginning next week up until June.

The assembly's approval came upon the request of 160 deputies belonging to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) who alleged that Abboud had misused his membership by levelling false corruption charges at Interior Ministry officers who were in charge of supervising Egypt's pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last year.

"MP Abboud alleged that these officers profiteered from their jobs in the form of receiving bribes and kickbacks from Saudi officials at the expense of poor Egyptian pilgrims," said the NDP request.

The accusations, if true, represent a serious misuse of Abboud's parliamentary membership and disciplinary measures would be in order. The NDP MPs request that Abboud be banned from attending parliamentary sessions until June was approved by 274 MPs, more than the required two- thirds of MPs.

The assembly also approved that Mohamed El-Omda, an independent MP from the Upper Egypt governorate of Aswan, be referred to the Ethics Committee on charges of trying to physically attack the assembly's parliamentary speaker Fathi Sorour.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Moufid Shehab opened Tuesday's meeting by saying Abboud had alleged on 29 December that LE24 million had gone into the pockets of Interior Ministry officers who were in charge of supervising Egypt's pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia last year. "Abboud said he would submit an interpellation against the prime minister and interior minister about his accusations, and the government decided that his interpellation be discussed today," Shehab said, adding, "it is not acceptable for the government to face serious charges about the financial integrity of police officers without answering these charges as quickly as possible."

In reviewing his 35-minute interpellation, Abboud warned NDP officials against penalising him. "This would be a violation of Article 98 of the constitution which empowers MPs with freely expressing their opinion," said Abboud.

Abboud, a member of the leftist Karama (dignity) movement for the Upper Egypt governorate of Beni Sweif, said he was happy that the government was caring enough to respond to his interpellation immediately and show adequate concern about its financial integrity. "But," he added, "the fact remains that the government has so far refused to respond to many other interpellations as serious as the current one, including the rigging of elections by police officers in 2005."

Abboud alleged that the government's decision to discuss his interpellation so soon was largely due to the fact that he submitted a question two months ago about the financial integrity of President Hosni Mubarak. "Although my question did not disturb President Mubarak, NDP leaders decided to retaliate and now they are out to get me under the allegation that my charges against police officers during the pilgrimage season were false," said Abboud.

Abboud said he was able to obtain several documents certifying that 191 police officers lined their pockets with money from low-income Egyptian pilgrims. Abboud estimated that the total costs of the pilgrimage for 28,000 Egyptians stood at LE359 million. At the same time, he added, "the documents I was able to obtain from the Interior Ministry substantiate that only LE244 million was spent on these pilgrims. My question now is where is the remaining LE115 million and why does the ministry not have documents concerning this huge amount of money?"

Ridiculed Abboud, the documents show different forms of corruption. "For instance, police officers bought pilgrims bottles of mineral water worth LE225,420." This, said Abboud, is ludicrous "because most Egyptian pilgrims affirmed they were most of the time without water and during their rituals they were forced to buy water on their own."

In the same vein, Abboud cited documents detailing huge costs of food, service and transportation. "If true, these costs mean that Egyptian pilgrims were the most privileged during the last pilgrimage season in Mecca and Medina," said Abboud. However, he added, all Egyptian newspapers agreed that Egyptian pilgrims received the worst treatment. "Newspapers cited that they were left in many cases to sleep outdoors and without blankets and that they were forced to pay the costs of their food, water and transportation although the expenses they paid before travelling to Saudi Arabia were supposed to cover all these services," said Abboud.

He added that police officers and other high- ranking state officials, including Minister of State for Economic Development Othman Mohamed Othman, stayed in five-star hotels and received high-quality service. "It was not enough for police officers to stay in deluxe hotels but it was also a good opportunity to make a fortune during a religious season in which Muslims ask God to forgive their sins," said Abboud.

Abboud alleged that the Interior Ministry's police officers do their best every year to be selected members of the pilgrimage mission. "They fight for this selection because they know quite well that it is a season more for gaining huge financial rewards than for attaining spiritual virtues," Abboud said.

Abboud and other opposition and independent MPs asked that the Interior Ministry's documents be referred to the Central Auditing Agency for examination.

Joining forces with Abboud, independent and opposition MPs warned NDP MPs of taking disciplinary action against Abboud. "This will be a very bad precedent," said Wafd Party leader Mahmoud Abaza. He added that he was concerned that NDP MPs will seize the meeting to intimidate opposition MPs who want to raise issues about the corruption of high-ranking state officials.

Alaa Abdel-Moneim, an independent MP and a former police officer, said Minister of Interior Habib El-Adli is the most corrupt minister Egypt has seen in the past 30 years.

In response, Shehab was quick to emphasise that all of Abboud's charges are entirely unfounded. Shehab said the total number of Egyptian Muslim pilgrims was 60,000. "As many as 28,000 of these are financially supported by the government because they belong to poor and middle income classes," said Shehab. He added that the cost of the pilgrimage for Egyptians rose this year by 8.4 per cent. He admitted that some pilgrims complained of poor service, "but the fact remains that state officials and police officers did their best so that Egyptians performed their pilgrimage rituals in the best and most dignified way." Shehab insisted that those who exploit their parliamentary membership to direct insults and fake corruption charges "against venerated state officials" should be punished.

Joining Shehab, Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Diaaeddin said each pilgrim paid just LE12,000 and that each received a large array of services "against this modest amount of money".

Diaaeddin indicated that the total cost of 28,000 pilgrims stood at LE36 million. "I wonder how MP Abboud was daring enough to allege that the costs were as high as LE359 million?" Diaaeddin asked Abboud to submit his documents to the prosecutor-general so that if proven guilty of corruption, the police officers concerned be punished.