CAIRO - A group of experts, who planned to speak about the measures the Government should take in the future to fight corruption, found themselves only able to think of the corruption that manipulated Hosni Mubarak's 30 years of rule. The experts said the former president had offered protection to an imperious class of corrupt people, resulting in a state of rampant corruption in all government offices and public circles. "Egypt was not about a state under Mubarak,” said Hossam Essa, a veteran law professor. “The president just led a band of thieves who cared only about collecting money and passing power onto his son later on,” he added in an American University seminar in Cairo on Saturday. Following an 18-day popular revolt that forced Hosni Mubarak to step down, did away with his ruling party, and sent most of his ministers and affiliate businessmen to jail, corruption is proving to be a nourishing fodder for discussions everywhere in this country's intellectual circles. This topic seems to be seeping out of these intellectual circles and into the streets where it is becoming an intrinsic part of discussions among the most apolitical social classes, classes that used to shy away from speaking politics under Mubarak. On public transport, at coffee shops, and inside the nation's homes, Egyptians have nothing to talk about the corruption of Mubarak, his ministers, and his son-connected businessmen. Essa and the other experts who attended this seminar said the absence of real supervisory agencies opens the way for more corruption and victimisation of the poor majority. They added that fighting corruption must start at these supervisory agencies themselves because these agencies would be an important guarantee against spreading this corruption. The experts called for changing public attitudes in ways that make the majority reject the presence of corruption officials and businessmen. Other experts said corruption was deep-rooted in Egypt and it would take future governments a long time to be able to trim it. For them, this can be easily detected wherever one goes in this country where the issuance of official documents is a process that is impossible to happen without greasing the palms of civil servants in government offices. “These public attitudes are important for fighting this corruption,” said a professor of management at Alexandria University. “For people to accept corruption is something that makes this corruption widespread,” he added.
