Head of Egypt tax authority arrested for receiving bribes

Head of Egypt’s tax authority has been arrested for receiving bribes, according to the public prosecutors’ office.

Following the arrest the Ministry of Finance said: “There is no one above the law, and there can be no covering up of corruption.”

The state news agency MENA says Abdul Azim Hussein received the bribes from accountants. Deputy tax authority Director Reda Abdul Kader is now acting head of the agency.

General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has vowed to fight corruption in the country and arrested several state officials to this effect, including former governor of the Delta province of Menufia, Hesham Abdul Basset in 2018, and Deputy Governor of Alexandria, Soad Al-Khuly in 2017.

Also in 2017 former agriculture minister Salah Helal was sentenced to ten years for taking bribes in office.

However, the president himself is embroiled in a huge scandal over allegations of corruption.

Late last year Egyptian whistleblower Mohamed Ali, who worked as a military contractor for 15 years, spoke out about the squandering of public funds by the government, Al-Sisi’s family and his inner circle.

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After the revelations protests broke out across Egypt.

According to the Corruption Perceptions Index created by the Berlin-based Transparency International, Egypt scores 35 out of 100, where 0 is the most corrupt.

The government goes to great lengths to silence critics of the regime, including those highlighting corruption.

In 2018 the former head of the Central Auditing Authority (CAA) Hisham Geneina was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of “publishing false information for harming national security.”

In his former position Geneina was responsible for overseeing public spending and writing reports on the spending of public money. He was sacked after exposing widespread government corruption and accused of misrepresenting facts about state corruption.

After his arrest, the prosecutor’s office imposed a gag order on reporting news about the CAA.

Transparency International has warned of the human rights consequences of political corruption, which it says is a major problem in Egypt: “Corruption in the country’s law enforcement agencies severely undermines the rule of law.”