CAIRO: Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud sent a request to the People's Assembly and Shoura Council to strip 14 MPs implicated in the free medical treatment scandal of their parliamentary immunity. Fourteen MPs, including 12 in the PA and two members of Egypt's Upper House of Parliament, have been allegedly exploiting public funds to gain access to the health ministry's free medical treatment program. The Public Funds Prosecution, which is currently investigating the case, has revealed that the 14 MPs issued 1,722 free medical treatment decrees, which include 10 decrees for treatment at private hospitals even though the facilities for the treatment were available at public hospitals. Furthermore, these decrees did not have the tracking serial number necessary for the Specialized Medical Councils and for hospitals to identify the medical condition of the patient benefiting from it, the treatment received and how much it cost, which has facilitated the MPs' illegal profits from these decrees. Last week, a new report by the Central Administration for Illegal Gains confirmed the involvement of 14 members of the PA and Shoura Council MPs as well as the former head of the Specialized Medical Councils in exploiting public funds and violating regulations for issuing these free treatment decrees. According to a report by the Central Accounting Agency, which has also confirmed the involvement of the MPs, in 2009 alone decrees for free medical treatment totaled LE 3.9 billion, when in the past three years, the program cost the government LE 8.335 billion. Decrees for free medical treatment which were issued between July 2007 and February 2010 were worth around LE 60 million, sometimes with single decrees costing LE 1,700,000.
