Hisham Geneina, head of the Central Auditing Organization, is calling for greater financial and legal oversight into government bodies, including the General Intelligence Service.
“There are attempts to keep those bodies mysterious on the grounds that the nature of their work is secretive,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “This is unjustified and paves the way for corruption.
“Even the clubs and hospitals affiliated to these bodies are immune to supervision,” he added.
“I understand there are some things affecting national security and the confidentiality of information,” he said. “But that should be regulated by the Information Act, which sets conditions and controls for the announcement of information.”
He said the Justice Ministry is preparing a draft law on the freedom of accessing information. “This law would be futile if other laws protect certain bodies against disclosing information.
“The Armed Forces agreed to place all commercial and economic activities under CAO supervision,” he said. “But armament falls under national security and may be considered confidential.
“It was the CAO that identified LE1.1 billion of embezzled funds allocated to presidential palaces,” he said. “[Hosni] Mubarak would not have been tried for that had we not found out.”
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
