More on Charges of Corruption in Hosny's Ministry

In a previous posting I noted that:

The Government of Egypt is ranked by the World Bank as relatively low in government efficiency and quite low in terms of control of corruption. Hosny has run an organization for decades in Egypt that is thought to be inefficient, and that has even been charged with corruption; he has offered his resignation in the past for its shortcomings. (See also this reference.)

A website managed by French students titled Save UNESCO has published the following (28/8/2007):

The problem is that one of the candidate, Farouk Hosni, is a real threat to this capacity of finding funds. His own very personal way of managing his Ministry of Culture, in Egypt, is totally corrupted, as 3 of his deputies were sentenced to imprisonment (including his chief of staff Aymane Abdel-Moneim).

In an earlier posting, Save UNESCO referred to a good general article on corruption in the government of Egypt on Quantara titled "The Fallen Pharaoh". However, I want to quote especially from an article by Sameh Fawzy on the Global Integrity Report:

In August 2007, the Administrative Control Authority (ACA), which tracks corruption within government agencies, arrested two aides to the minister of Culture on charges of corruption. The first was Ahmed Hussein, caught red-handed with a bribe of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (US$1,800) from a contractor competing for a contract for the restoration of the Nubian Museum, while the second, Ayman Abdel-Moneim, was accused of collecting bribes from contractors working for the Ministry of Culture. The investigations revealed that both defendants have been on the take for some time, collecting bribes ranging from meals of fish to luxurious apartments.

The minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, is the Egyptian nominee for the post of director-general of UNESCO (United Nation's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), with elections slated for 2009 in Paris. Hosni defended his aides, stating that they were competent in their work, but insisted that he would not protect any corrupt employee.

"Corruption in Egypt…A dark cloud that does not vanish," a long report by Egypt's Kifaya Movement focuses in part on the illegal trade in Egyptian antiquities, indicting the Ministry of Culture with at least the blame for failing to create adequate controls to monitor and prevent the theft from Egypt of such treasures.

The Executive Board should consider very carefully whether Farouk Hosny, given the reports on the ministry he led for more than two decades, could assure the honest and transparent administration of UNESCO, and indeed whether his election to the post of Director General would send a bad message to the world.