Egypt moved up 20 places in the recently released Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) this year, coming in 94th place among 177 countries compared to 114th last year. The country was among the biggest improvers in the CPI alongside Côte d'Ivoire, Afghanistan, Jordan, Mali and Swaziland. China, Turkey and Angola fell by four to five spots each. The CPI is based on expert opinions of public-sector corruption gathered by Transparency International, a Berlin-based nongovernmental organisation with more than 100 chapters around the world. Country scores are helped by the presence of government practices that make it possible for the public to hold leaders accountable. A poor score is a sign of prevalent bribery, lack of punishments for corruption and public institutions that do not respond to citizens' needs. “This report confirms that Egypt is on the right track and will have a significant positive impact on the Egyptian economy. It increases investor confidence as well as the confidence of international and foreign institutions,” said Minister of Planning Ashraf Al-Araby. He made the comment while attending the inauguration of last week's Egyptian Quality Day Conference. But the average citizen may not feel the improved ranking. “It has become a fact that whenever I need to renew my car licence or complete any transaction at a government authority I have to pay a bribe in order to speed up the completion of the paper work,” said Mohamed Abdel-Hameed, a teacher. The minister said that Egypt is working to establish an administrative body consistent with global efficiency standards to tackle remaining problems. A new public service law, aimed at improving state services, could be issued by presidential decree before the upcoming parliamentary elections, he said. The new law would include a code of conduct for employees and tie this to career promotion and evaluation. The system would enable hardworking employees to be promoted to leadership positions based on positive evaluations. It could also result in employees being fired if they receive low evaluations for two consecutive years and there are complaints about their performance. While Egypt's ranking in the CPI index improved this year, it still scored disappointingly, Transparency International said, suggesting there was work to be done to combat corruption. Assem Abdel-Moety, chairman of the Egyptian Centre for Transparency and Anti-Corruption, an NGO, told the Weekly, “We should not overstate Egypt's ranking in the CPI. Egypt may have moved up but its score has not changed much, from 36 out of 100 last year to 37 out of 100 in 2014.” Scores are on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean). More than two-thirds of the 177 countries included in the 2014 CPI scored below 50. Abdel-Moety attributed Egypt's move up in the CPI to positive steps taken by the government. One was the November 2013 issuance of a law to prevent conflict of interest among state officials. According to a study conducted by Transparency International in 2013, the high rate of corruption in Egypt claimed 25 to 27 per cent of the annual state budget. This means that combating corruption would save a great deal of money that could be useful in national projects. Another important step had been the government's decision to restructure the National Anti-Corruption Committee, Abdel-Moety said. The CPI expressed reservations about the committee, set up in 2010, as it was made up of government representatives and was affiliated to the Ministry of Justice. In order to meet global criteria, the prime minister issued a decree three months ago to restructure the committee to include the minister of local administration, and representatives of the Administrative Prosecution and the Administrative Control Authority. Abdel-Moety said that he would have preferred to include a representative of a financial authority, such as the Central Auditing Agency, that has the ability to inspect corruption cases. But, regardless of the committee's structure, Abdel-Moety said that the CPI considered the establishment of the committee as a positive step towards fighting corruption. Heba Nassar, a professor of economics at Cairo University, said that more needs to be done about the problem of corruption in Egypt. She said that while Egypt's improved ranking was positive and could help attract local and foreign investment, the government could do more, such as applying strict procedures on issues such as conflicts of interest. “When somebody joins the public service they should be prevented from continuing in their own private business,” she said. Nassar suggested that Egypt should look to what countries like Denmark are doing in that regard. Denmark came top in this year's CPI with a score of 92. Some experts believe that the law introduced last April preventing third parties from challenging contracts made with the government and removing judicial or civil oversight has opened the door to more corruption. However, Nassar said that this law protects investors as well as individuals' rights since it was unfair that after 20 years contracts had been subject to cancellation, as was the case with some of the companies that were privatised. Studies assert that comfortable working conditions and career progress are linked to the quality of public administration. With the salaries of state employees considered meagre, this can be used to justify acceptance of bribes. The income generated from these bribes can often total more than the entire monthly salary of an employee. “As long as the poverty rate keeps increasing in Egypt it will be difficult to control corruption. It is the role of the government to set out a plan to reduce poverty. This should be the ultimate goal of all projects in the future,” Nassar said. Abdel-Moety added that although decisions had been taken towards fighting corruption, many of them were political decisions and the government was not doing enough to ensure their implementation. If the government really cares about combating corruption, Abdel-Moety added, it should implement existing anti-corruption laws and increase the penalties for corruption. To combat corruption at the roots Transparency International set out recommendations, he said. These included the government not intervening in the affairs of special agencies in order to achieve the separation of the legislative, executive and judicial authorities. Abdel-Moety urged the government to issue a law that encourages the public to hold its leaders accountable. He said the government should change some current laws, including Law 47/1978, Law 48/1987 and Law 5/1991, since these are considered to provide loopholes that contribute to corruption.
