29 March 2016•Update: 04 April 2016
By Hussein Mahmoud
CAIRO
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on Monday sacked the head of the country’s anti-corruption authority, who earlier said corruption had cost Egypt billions of pounds.
The official MENA news agency said Sisi had sacked Hisham Geneina, the head of the Central Auditing Organization (CAO), from his post.
Citing sources, MENA said Geneina's deputy Hisham Badawi has been tasked with running the agency.
In January, Geneina had sparked a controversy after saying that corruption from 2012 to 2015 has cost Egypt up to 600 billion pounds ($75 billion).
Sisi reacted with forming a fact-finding commission, which accused Geneina of falsifying information and distorting facts.
The panel said the CAO chief’s statements were “misleading” and “lacked credibility.”
MENA did not say why Geneina was sacked, but the move came after the State Security Prosecution said his findings were inaccurate.
Egypt ranked 94th out of 175 countries on Transparency International’s 2014 corruption perceptions index.
Corruption was one of the main grievances that triggered mass streets protests in 2011 that led to the ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Illegal
Ali Taha, a lawyer for the anti-corruption chief, has denounced his sacking as “illegal.”
“Sisi’s move to relieve my client from his duties is invalid and illegal,” Taha told Anadolu Agency.
He said the Egyptian president does not have the authority to sack the CAO chief.
“There is a bylaw regulating the work of the CAO,” he said. “The agency is immune and any change to the law must be conducted by parliament, in consultation with the CAO.”
Geneina was appointed by former President Mohamed Morsi in 2012, who was ousted by the military in a 2013 coup.
Geneina was set to serve a four-year term, which was expected to end in September.
