Former official: Corruption in Egypt costs $25.5bn since revolution

Nearly 200 billion Egyptian pounds ($25.5 billion) has been lost through corruption since the January 2011 revolution until the end of 2014, the former deputy chief of the Central Auditing Agency and current director of the Egyptian Centre for Transparency and Countering Corruption Assem Abdel Moaty said, adding this amounted to nearly a quarter of the state budget.

Abdul Moaty said in remarks published in Egypt’s Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper yesterday: “The corrupt are still in their positions and only the political will has the upper hand in the fight against corruption.”

He criticised what he described as “the lack of interest by the successive Egyptian governments in the fight against corruption which do not support the regulatory agencies in the fight against corruption.”

Last week, Egypt’s agriculture minister was arrested in Cairo after being told to step aside in connection with an investigation into corruption at his ministry.

“We need a legal revolution to abolish laws that protect corruption and to issue new laws that have been delayed for more than 40 years as well as to achieve independence of regulatory agencies,” Abdel Moaty said.

He added that corruption in Egypt is institutionalised.

For nearly 40 years and until the revolution of 25 January that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak’s regime “there were laws enacted only to protect certain groups, mainly businessmen, but the state did not abolish or amend these laws, which questions its seriousness regarding the fight against corruption,” he said.

According to the official, the current Egyptian state “has only removed the heads of corruption and kept the roots including heads of agencies, deputy ministers, general managers and some heads of public sector companies and members of boards of directors.”