The Minister of Administrative Development Ahmed Darwish has warned the members of the Committee on Transparency and Integrity from issuing press releases. This came after the minister was embarrassed by some government agencies due to statements revealing what goes on in meetings. The ministry has distributed Darwish's decision to all 15 members, topped by the committee rapporteur Ghada Moussa. The ministry affirmed that it would issue a statement after each meeting to illustrate its results.
Al-Masry Al-Youm has learnt that Darwish called for statements not to be contradictory, especially as the ministry is about to issue its third annual report since its establishment.
Darwish's decision comes days after Egypt was ranked 67 in the world by the annual report of Transparency International. Egypt got "very poor" grade behind countries such as Israel - which came fourth - Angola, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Senegal, Namibia, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and South Africa. The report was based on 300 different indices representing different kinds of corruption. It had five standard estimates (very good, good, medium, poor and very poor). In most indices, Egypt got "very poor". The report added that citizens' freedom to obtain information is virtually non-existent in Egypt.
