An independent member of parliament says he has new documents revealing the corruption of former housing minister Ibrahim Suleiman, who has been under investigation due to corruption charges since January.
Alaa Eddin Abdel Monem Hafez, an independent MP, accuses Suleiman of distributing land as collateral for loans when he was housing minister.
According to Hafez, Egyptian Engineers for Real Estate Investment Group obtained a loan of LE1.679 billion from the Egyptian Arab Land Bank in October 2005 using land as collateral. The bank was to then pay the rest of the amount–LE76 million–to the New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA). NUCA’s assets were valued at LE1.95 billion.
Hafez says Suleiman allocated more than 647 feddans of land, of which 570 were allocated in one day, to the Egyptian Engineers for Real Estate.
Businessmen from the Egyptian Engineers for Real Estate as well as others allocated the land only paid ten percent of the total value of the land as down-payment, according to Hafez, and were required to pay the rest in installments. Hafez says the businessmen also managed to use the land, which they did not yet legally own, as collateral to take out bank loans. Hafez describes what happened as business tycoons stealing Egyptians’ real estate and bank deposits.
"On a television program, Ibrahim Suleiman described the plots of land bought by the Egyptian Engineers Company as ‘garbage dumps,’" said Hafez. "I wonder if all the plots of land that they used to obtain bank loans could be described in this way?"
The Supreme Public Funds Prosecution discovered that Suleiman allowed businessmen to obtain loans from banks before the ownership of the land was fully transferred to them.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
