Sisi urges African cooperation against corruption forms

CAIRO – 12 June 2019: The Egyptian president urged cooperation between African nations in the face of corruption, affirming the importance of concerted efforts, exchanging visions and enhancing coordination to curb corruption.

During the inaugural session of the African Anti-Corruption Forum (AACF) held in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El Sheikh, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi affirmed that "Egypt will continue to support the joint efforts to combat corruption at the African level."


Reviewing Egypt's efforts in this regard, the president announced "doubling the training grants provided by the National Anti-Corruption Academy for the cadres of African law enforcement bodies."

"Egypt also welcomes cooperation with its African brothers and the African Union relevant bodies to exchange the best practices in this field. In this context, we also affirm the importance of deepening international cooperation with the main partners of Africa at various levels, to achieve the desired benefit in this regard."

Concerning the national anti-corruption efforts, Sisi said that "Egypt has come a long way in the past years in the fight against corruption in various forms, and has been concerned with conducting research, studies and opinion polls in order to track the causes of corruption and identify real measurements for it."

Sisi noted that, within the framework of the Egyptian constitution, Egypt has been committed to the principle of fighting corruption. This has obliged "the relevant regulatory bodies and authorities to commit to coordinate to fight corruption, and enhance the values of integrity and transparency, to ensure the preservation of public money, achieve good management of it, and organize benefiting from it for the interest of the people in the first place."



"Moreover, requires legislations have been enacted and activated to combat corruption in all its forms, as it is considered one of the main obstacles to achieving sustainable development," the president said, noting, also, to the establishment of the National Coordinating Committee to Combat Corruption and the National Anti-Corruption Academy.

The president affirmed that Egypt is committed to international standards in this regard, adding that It has joined the relevant UN, African and Arab conventions, most recently the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, which is considered the main legal document for the African continent to fight corruption.

"The State (Egypt) has adopted legislative reform measures that govern and comply with all provisions of the Convention, Sisi said.

"In addition, specialized departments have been created to combat financial and administrative corruption, and take digital transformation measures to enhance administrative and financial governance and help eliminate bureaucracy," the president added.

The African Anti-Corruption Forum (AACF) brings together participants from 51 African countries and four Arab countries.

The forum is held in line with an initiative that was launched by president Sisi in January 2018 during his participation in the annual African Summit.

Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli, Speaker of the House of Representatives Ali Abdel Aal and Minister of Defense Mohamed Zaki along with Minister of Planning Hala El Saeed and other ministers and senior officials are attending the forum.