Former Manpower Minister Kamal Abu Eita has rebuffed accusations that he is among other ministry officials accused of squandering at least LE40 million between 2007 and 2014, stressing that he has not been summoned for interrogation.
“My body bears marks of my resistance to corruption, I would never do that,” Abu Eita, who held the ministerial post from July 2013 to February 2014, told TV channel TEN late Saturday. He was commenting on news reports citing the Public Funds Prosecution service as saying that he, along with former minister Nahed al-Ashry and other officials, had illegally taken LE40 million in rewards since 2007.
“If it is proven that I abused my post to obtain money, I will go down to Tahrir Square and shoot myself dead,” he said. “The regime that collapsed during the January 2011 uprising is making a strong comeback and seeks to tarnish the revolutionaries and the honorable,” he said, referring to the uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak under whom he gained wide popularity as a workers’ rights activist.
Abu Eita vowed to sue “media figures and businessmen” who sought to defame him with the charges.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
