Egypt supply minister accused of wasting public funds

Egyptian legal sources have accused the country’s Minister of Supply and Internal Trade, Ali Al-Muselhi, of wasting public funds by receiving illegal financial bonuses over the past three years. The ministry described this accusation as a “malicious accusation”.

Lawyer Ahmed Mahran, the head of the Cairo Centre for Political and Legal Studies, said that the minister received $35,000 in illegal financial bonuses.

Acting on behalf of Mohammad Essam Abdallah, head of storage in the supply ministry’s General Committee for Foreign Aid, and Ayman Abdulsalam Zaki, head of the technical office in the General Committee for Foreign Aid, Mahran filed a complaint to the Attorney General Nabil Sadek yesterday.

The complaint notes that the minister received an additional illegal monthly salary of about $1,700 from the General Committee for Foreign Aid, in addition to his normal salary.

Read: How many bags of money would it take to sell Egypt?

Mahran’s complaint was accompanied by documents proving the current supply minister’s involvement in granting himself financial bonuses despite the fact that they belonged to the former minister, Khaled Hanafy.

The ministry described the complaint filed against Al-Muselhi as “malicious”.

It accused Abdullah and Zaki of committing financial and administrative crimes as well as corruption.

It also claimed that the two men filed the complaint against the minister because he had issued a decision to inventory and review unutilised assets last November.