ACA foils corruption, bribery cases estimated at LE 3B

CAIRO – 12 December 2017: Egypt’s Administrative Control Authority (ACA) succeeded in foiling several corruption and bribery attempt cases during the past week, estimated to be worth LE 3 billion ($168 million) and other LE 77 million ($4.3 million) respectively, according to official statements.

The accusations targeted lawyers, officials, executive directors and heads of government institutions.

According to the statements, the ACA arrested a lawyer offering a bribe up to LE 100,000, along with a piece of land estimated to be worth LE 2 million, to the inspector of the Alexandria Survey Authority Directorate in order to deliver a space of land to him without mentioning the state’s ownership over parts of it.

Also, another evaluation general director affiliated with the Governmental Services Authority was arrested for receiving a bribe up to LE 180,000 from a scrap dealer in exchange for declining the ton’s price from LE 6,000 to LE 4,000, which would affect the state's treasury by about LE 1.5 million.

In Alexandria, the ACA succeeded in targeting a group of criminals who were aiming to take over several pieces of land estimated at LE 1.4 billion using forged contracts and papers.

Other criminals in several governorates were reported to be arrested for similar cases in Port Said, Ismailia, Suez, Luxor and Aswan.

In Suez, a former deputy director of housing and utilities was arrested for forging papers for real estate owners, enabling them to prove the payment of their due fees without actually paying anything to the state.

According to the ACA papers, this case only caused the state’s treasury to lose about LE 1 million.

This is however not the first wide-scale corruption crackdown by ACA. Several other companies were lunched during the past periods that succeed of hunting similar cases.

Last November, the first deputy chairman of the Central Housing Cooperative Union was arrested for receiving bribes worth up to LE 8 million and 14 ownership contracts for 14 housing units, as well as other stores, from one of the contractors.

The ACA also managed to arrest two siblings offering bribes to the president of Al-Salam district in return for enabling them to illegally obtain a plot of a land on an area of five acres owned by the Ministry of Endowments.