ACA arrests governor of Monufia over corruption charges

CAIRO – 15 January 2018: The Administrative Control Authority (ACA) – the regulatory body responsible for enforcing laws and regulations within state bodies – detained on Sunday the governor of Monufia Hesham Abdel Baset and two businessmen in Sadat City over charges of corruption.

Security sources said the governor was under the ACA surveillance in the last period, and the authority managed to record phone calls by Abdel Baset proving that he agreed to take LE 2m as a bribe in return for land licenses.

The sources pointed out that the ACA detected a number of corruption cases involving the arrested governor.

The ACA referred the governor to the public prosecution for investigation.

Bribery and corruption have been rife in Egypt for long decades and was one of the main causes of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak.

President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi always asserted on applying strict measures within the government institutions to crack down any violation. He hailed the role played by the ACA in different occasions.

The ACA’s efforts were very fruitful in the last years and prosecuted several high-profile cases which led to a noticeable decline in corruption incidents.

In April 2016, the Cairo Criminal Court sent former agriculture minister, Salah El Din Mahmoud Helal, and his office manager to 10 years in prison each on corruption charges.

The prosecution said in a court session that Helal and his office manager had accepted bribes including a luxury home, membership of an exclusive sports club, clothing from high-end fashion stores, and mobile phones.

In January 2017, former Secretary-General of Egypt's State Council Wael Shalaby committed suicide while in custody after his arrest for alleged corruption.

This incident came days after a procurement manager at the State Council, Gamal Al-Laban, was arrested and charged with receiving bribes worth millions of Egyptian pounds.

Egypt ranked 108th out of 176 countries on Transparency International’s 2016 Corruption Perception Index, scoring 34 points, down two points compared to 2015. A score of zero is highly corrupt while 100 is very clean.

Transparency International, the leading civil society organization fighting corruption worldwide, will release its next annual Corruption Perceptions Index on 25 January 2018.