Cairo - Alexandria's Deputy Governor Saod El-Kholy was arrested on Sunday on several corruption charges, including bribery, profiting and squandering public funds, Egypt's Administrative Control Authority (ACA) said in a statement. The ACA said that the deputy governor, who was arrested at the governorate headquarters, is accused of receiving over EGP 1 million in bribes from five businessmen, who have also been arrested. A security source told Al-Arabic Ahram website that El-Kholy will appear today before a public-finance prosecutor. El-Kholy is accused of accepting bribes in return for protecting businessmen from having their illegally-constructed properties demolished and paying related fines. Investigators claim that she abused her authority as deputy governer, obstructing the demolition of unlicensed buildings and those built illegally on state land, while exempting the violators from paying the required fines. According to the ACA statement, her actions are alleged to have cost EGP 10 million in public funds. El-Kholy is also accused of hiding her "illegal wealth under other names to avoid being sued," the statement reads. In 2015, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail appointed El-Kholy as the acting governor of Alexandria following the resignation of the former governor Hany El-Mesery. El-Kholy was appointed deputy governor after the appointment of Mohamed Sultan as governor to succeed El-Mesery. The ACA is responsible for enforcing laws and regulations within state bodies, including identifying possible cases of corruption and referring them for prosection. In the past year, the ACA has referred several state officials to prosecution on bribery charges. Last December, Egypt's President Abdel-Fatah El-Sisi stressed the importance of fighting corruption in the country, hailing the ACA's role.
