Menoufiya governor Hesham Abdel Baset was arrested on Sunday over bribery charges, a source at Egypt's Administrative Control Authority said. In statements to Al-Ahram Arabic news website, the source said Abdel Baset was arrested while receiving an EGP 2 million (around 113,000 USD) bribe from a businessman, after the governor had illegally allocated a plot of land to the businessman. The source added that the authority "had voice recordings and pictures that confirm the incident." The ACA is responsible for enforcing laws and regulations within state bodies, including identifying possible cases of corruption and referring them to the prosecution. Since 2016, the ACA has referred several state officials to the prosecution on bribery charges, with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressing the importance of fighting corruption in the country through the state's administrative authority. In August 2017, Alexandria's Deputy Governor Saod El-Kholy was arrested on several corruption charges, including bribery, profiteering and squandering public funds. El-Kholy, who was referred with others to a criminal court last November, was accused of receiving over EGP 1 million in bribes from five businessmen.
