Shooting the messenger?

[newcastle]

Egypt's State Security prosecution summoned the country's former top auditor Hisham Geneina for questioning on Tuesday over his report claiming that theft by public officials has cost the treasury LE600 billion since 2012.
In January, the country's top prosecutor issued a gag order on Geneina's report.

In March, a presidential decree dismissed Geneina from his post and appointed his deputy, Hesham Badawy, as the acting head of the Central Auditing Agency.

Since taking office, Geneina has on more than one occasion reported widespread corruption in some of Egypt’s most powerful institutions, including the police, the judiciary and intelligence agencies.

Also in March, the State Security prosecution said that Geneina had exaggerated the sums lost to corruption by referring to violations that took place prior to 2012, and that he had abused his position as head auditor in gathering documents to make his case.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... uesti.aspx

[newcastle]

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered a taskforce to be formed late Saturday in order to investigate corruption allegations in the media, following last week’s claims by Central Auditing Organization head Hisham Genena that corruption from 2012 to 2015 cost the country LE600 billion.
The committee will be headed by the chief of the Administrative Control Authority and will consist of representatives from the ministries of justice, interior, planning, and finance, in addition to Central Auditing Organization deputy chief Hisham Badawi.

The committee will draft the urgent report and submit it to the president, after which it will be presented to the public. quietly buried along with the authors.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... -corr.aspx

[Hafiz]

Subsequent to that December news report the auditor has been fired, smeared by accusations of fraud/terrorism/impugning the presidency/spreading false news/creating disorder etc. I exaggerate only slightly. None of these accusations has resulted in an actual criminal charge against the auditor and the urgent report on the fraud to the president, mentioned in December, has received no subsequent public attention. Obviously no fraud to worry about.

The 'red and frisky' former auditor is now suing the Egyptian state for wrongful dismissal as well as breach of the constitution. Outrageous, unprecedented and how American - imagine, using the courts to question executive action. His contested dismissal gets minimal coverage from an Al Ahram that was previously happy to cover his 'justifiable' presidential removal on the front page and propagandize accusations, none currently pursued, that he was corrupt. Where in the world would the peremptory dismissal of the chief state auditor go unquestioned? Add to my list. North Korea, Syria, Russia... Who is going to invest in such a state?

The Egyptian courts will now get to decide whether the president was wrong in personally removing him. The history of those courts does not need to be explained nor their need to hold important persons to embarrassing account is widely known. Egyptian judicial and political history is that the highest are held to account and, therefore, lessons are learnt. Prestige and status should always maintained and history should be given an opportunity to repeat itself - preferably with the benefit of same actors.

The Auditor will be putting his trust in Mubarak and Sisi judges and courts freshly cleansed of Morsi terrorist-judges.

It may not have been accidental that the auditor was removed immediately after he publicly stated that more than a hundred billion $US had been stolen from the taxpayer - and a lot of that loot after 2013. The date is significant.

Everyone in Egypt should be forced to read Orwell. But where is the Orwell of Arabic literature who tells you that all power corrupts, all 'leaders' will eventually betray, all political promises are mostly wind, anyone who talks about the 'nation' is talking about themselves, political hero-worship is slavery, change politicians regularly and that you only trust yourself, your family and friends to be truthful. And maybe not even then. Mahfouz, (a contender for an Orwell role) for my money, always had a distasteful and romantic hearkening for the Nassr military and economic dictatorship and there has been no subsequent better reforming intellect to the problems of Egypt.

Its too easy to be cynical about IMF and World Bank demands for transparent decision making but what they really mean, at their best, is that there should be independent institutions, like the lamented auditor, to deliver the bad news so that mistakes are corrected, ministers and businessman removed and jailed and the interests of the Egyptian taxpayer, who pays for this fiasco, protected. There maybe no wholesale Orwell reform but there can be simple boring practical means to protect the weak from the strong. One of those protections has now been removed and his eventual replacement will not be unreflective about what is required to survive in his new job.

[newcastle]

What can I say......

I'm reminded :

Al-Masry Al-Youm
11/09/2014
Security services arrested a student in front of the main gate of Cairo University for carrying George Orwell's novel 1984, which tackles corruption and dictatorial military regimes.

According to investigations supervised by Major General Mahmoud Farouk, head of Giza investigators, student Mohamed T., 21, who resides in the neighborhood of Warraq, was arrested Sunday while in possession of two cell phones without batteries, two USB drives, a hard disk and a copy of the novel 1984 that speaks about a dictatorial ruling party that criminalizes political rebellion.

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/st ... novel-1984

[Major Thom]

Talk of IMF, was Christine Lafarge being investigated on corruption charges not so long ago?

[newcastle]

Talk of IMF, was Christine Lafarge being investigated on corruption charges not so long ago?

She's being accused of negligence in connection with an alleged corruption case.

Not quite the same thing.

[Major Thom]

Still Dirt and mud Newc. And we know what happens to mud don't we!

[Hafiz]

They might arrest students for reading Orwell but a Cairo theater group are now staging a play version of his '1984'. Heartening.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... ells-.aspx

[newcastle]

Trouble is, it only takes one upstanding righteous citizen to complain that it's a slur on the blessed Regime.....and the fur starts flying.

Good luck to them though!

[Zooropa]

Talk of IMF, was Christine Lafarge being investigated on corruption charges not so long ago?

She's being accused of negligence in connection with an alleged corruption case.

Not quite the same thing.

Regardless of what the charge relates to, shes a spiv and any "advice" she comes out with should be filed appropriately.

[Hafiz]

There must be something in the Cairo water at the moment affecting Egyptian theater.

A university theater company is staging, at the Opera house no less, an East European farce from the 70’s satirizing bureaucratic nonsense:

“The story focuses on Ivan Antonov, a young intellectual and linguistics professor who buys a suede jacket. He discovers, however, that the jacket still has some sheep hair on it and decides to trim it. Wanting to avoid a public humiliation, Antonov decides to give the jacked a haircut.

The operation can be done by none other than the sheep shearer, yet according to the local law, once it is done, the jacket becomes an actual sheep according to the village records.

Moreover, according to the same law and following the absurd logic, now Antonov has to pay tax for owning a sheep.

Baffled by the absurdity of the situation, the protagonist finds himself in a vicious circle of the infernal bureaucratic system. Nothing that he says or does convinces the authorities that the jacket is not a sheep” http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... acy-u.aspx

No doubt just entertainment for the elite, but heartening nonetheless. In a theater today – possibly on TV tomorrow.

Nothing like humor to disarm the powerful.