Cairo Misdemeanor Court renewed on Wednesday the detention of Menoufiya Governor Hesham Abdel Basset for 15 days pending further investigation.
Basset and two businesspersons were arrested on charges of bribery. The arrests that took place last week came hours before Al-Sisi’s visit to the province to inaugurate a number of projects.
The Administrative Control Authority (ACA) arrested the governor and the businesspersons allegedly during the delivery of a bribe, and the suspects were referred to the prosecution for investigations.
The ACA has been actively trying to tackle corruption cases across various entities in Egypt.
Among the incidents monitored in December 2016 was a corruption case related to the State Council, in which three officials in the purchasing department were arrested in possession of large sums of money and gold that they received as bribes. The report referred to the State Council officials’ case as “one of the biggest corruption cases in Egypt.”
In October, the State Security Prosecution ordered the imprisonment of a Suez Governorate official and two other defendants for four days pending investigations into bribery charges. The official was arrested while receiving a bribe from a contractor for issuing illegal licenses.
