- ActivitesHuman RightsParliament News
- February 6, 2009
- 3 minutes read
Urgent Statement on More Bribes Given to Egypt ’s Ruling Party MPs
MP Hamdi Hassan, the media spokesman of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc, tabled an urgent statement for Ministers of Finance, Social Solidarity and the Prime Minister on more reported bribes given to the MPs affiliated to the Egyptian ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) MPs.
Al-Masri Al-Yom Newspaper- published on Thursday, Feb, 5th, 2009, showed on its homepage what it called documents proving that every NDP member of parliament received 250000 pounds to spend in whatever source he sees appropriate, in building schools, mosques, helping pour young women to get married, helping aged people or any poor people that the MP names. The paper said that these sums of money are paid from the Social Affairs departments, i.e from the state general budget and public money.
” How can we describe these actions committed by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Solidarity- both are MPs and are members of the NDP and its top bodies- of acting on public money in such a way, spending them on their fellow NDP MPs, supporters, their societies or families or on themselves as chairmen or members of boards?”, said Hassan.
The Muslim Brotherhood MP said he discovered that thousands of pounds have been paid to sons and relatives of ruling NDP MPs, with these claims supported by clear documents.
“We asked about this but received no answer. We accused but received no defense or justification. We only faced a complete negligence as if nothing happens. We were only referred to the ethics committee in the People”s Assembly and faced punishments to deter and silence us and remain mum on this issue”, he added.
The MP raised his eyebrows why such millions of public money are given to specific persons picked by National Democratic Party MPs while millions of citizens are under the poverty line and can”t afford even their daily living, in a flagrant contradiction to the principle of equality prescribed in the constitution and law.
“How can we allow such a twisting of law to spend public property in such a corrupt manner”, he wondered, quoting the paper as saying the money is drawn from the US aid.
The MP lamented that corruption reaches such a level of making the poor Egyptian citizens pay the cost of this aid and its interest while it is spent in an illegal manner. “The government should show the truth before people and MPs and detail how this aid is spent and who are the ones benefiting from it and show the dollar-pound relation in it”, he said.
“Silence won”t protect the National Party or government from the charge of wasting and spending public money on NDP MPs, their relatives and aides. This silence will not discharge the ministers from the charges of facilitating such public money for fellow NDP MPs and their relatives”, he said.
Hamdi Hassan said that such incidents are unacceptable, demanding those steeling public property should be punished and hat such suspicious facilitations must stop.