Ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi accused of receiving nearly LE260,000 in illegal payments during his troubled one year in office; judicial and state-security authorities also allegedly guilty of financial irregularities Egyptian auditing authority head Hisham Geneina revealed on Monday that financial violations have been committed by the state's sovereign bodies, including the presidency and judicial and state-security authorities. At a press conference held at the Central Auditing Organisation (CAO), Geneina said that ousted president Mohamed Morsi was paid a total of LE794,000 during his year in office from June 2012 to June 2013. Morsi's legal monthly wage is LE44,516, which means that the remaining payments totaling nearly LE260,000 are tainted with violations, Geneina said. He went on to point out that the state-security body has perpetrated financial irregularities worth LE2.5 billion, while the judicial authority's portion of the violations have been estimated at LE3 billion. No dates were specified for these violations. Geneina also claimed that the interior ministry refused to be supervised by the CAO. "I call on the interior minister to respect the power of law," he stated. Since 2011, the CAO referred 428 complaints to the state public fund prosecution, "out of which 265 were ignored while 28 were shelved. Meanwhile, only nine complaints led to convictions,"Geneina stated. He added that the state's project to annually lease arable land along the Nile to farmers, a scheme known as "Tarh El-Nahr," has wasted around LE18 billion in recent years. Geneina's appointment as CAO chair during Morsi's term came almost a year after the last CAO permanent head, Gawdat El-Malt, completed his tenure. The CAO is a governmental body that supervises public finances and has been consistently accused of covering up financial crimes carried out by the regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/94524.aspx
