Official Documents: Former Housing Minister Sold Special Lands and Villas to his Wife and Children While in Office

The former housing minister, Mohamed Ibrahim Suleiman, has been accused of squandering LE300 billion of state funds to benefit business magnate Hisham Talaat Mustafa, who is currently in prison while undergoing prosecution for the murder of a Lebanese singer. Egypt's Administrative Court annulled on Tuesday 22 June a land sale between between the government, represented by Suleiman, and the country’s biggest publicly-listed property developer, the Talaat Mustafa Group (TMG), on the grounds that the sale had not been opened to public bidding.

Hamdy el-Dosouky el-Fakharany, the architect who filed the lawsuit in relation to which the verdict was issued, submitted yesterday a report to Attorney General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud in which he claimed that Mustafa's Madinaty project, run by TMG in a residential area east of Cairo, received preferential treatment. The project "enjoyed exceptions that were not seen by other undertakings," el-Fakharany said. He also noted that imported items for implementing the project were exempted from custom duties, on the basis of Law 59/1979 on new urban communities. The Attorney General decided to refer the report to the authorities concerned. A judicial source predicts that the report will be included in investigations being conducted by the Public Fund Investigations police in relation to similar reports submitted by parliament representatives.

Irregularities, misallocations, dodgy deals and controversial contracts seem to be a common thread in state-owned land sales in recent years, with more and more stories of corruption coming to light.

The laundry list, getting longer with each new expose, either through parliament or the media, currently ends with the case of Madinaty, a large, gated compound lying on the edge of Cairo and owned by business mogul, ex-MP and former ruling party strongman Hisham Talaat Mustafa, who stands accused of murder in a separate case. The validity of his ownership of the 8000 feddans of land that house his real-estate project is under question.

The final verdict is due on 14 September, according to a decision by Egypt’s top administrative court. The two men at the heart of this land sale scandal are Mustafa, considered to be Egypt’s biggest publicly-listed property developer, and former housing minister Mohamed Ibrahim Soliman, accused of squandering state money through similar questionable deals and contracts.

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Another recent example of official corruption is that of MP and former housing minister Ibrahim Suleiman, who has been officially charged with both profiteering and wasting public funds during his tenure as minister. In late 2008, several pieces of evidence, including photocopied documents given to Al-Masry Al-Youm, revealed that Suleiman had sold four lots of land in the Cairo suburbs and had given three villas in the posh seaside Marina area to his wife and children. The documents were largely seen as proof of wrongdoing, especially after Suleiman denied, during a 2007 parliamentary session, that he had acquired the property in question when serving as minister. According to the documents, now considered court evidence against Suleiman, the former minister's personal holdings surged over the course of his ministerial tenure, by the end of which he owned nine luxury cars, three pieces of land and a villa in the upscale Heliopolis district--in addition to a host of other assets.

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Egypt's Administrative Control Authority (ACA) has unearthed more documents implicating former housing minister Ibrahim Soliman in alleged excesses during his term. The documents were reportedly found in the ministry's 6th October City premises and in the office of a legal advisor that worked for the ministry.

The documents reveal that Soliman had sold land belonging to the ministry to three unknown individuals for LE200,000, later buying it back for himself at the same amount--even though the real value of the land had been estimated at LE2 million.

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47 MPs Submit Notification to Public Prosecutor against Former Housing Minister
By Mahmoud Mohamed 25/ 1/ 2009
http://www.almasry-alyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=196314

47 Egyptian MPs from all political forces handed a notification to Public Prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmoud against former Housing Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Suleiman, demanding that all necessary measures be taken to protect the people's money. MP Ala Eddin Abdel Moniem, who actually delivered the notification, explained to the Public Prosecutor the details of their paper.

The MPs, who either were independent or belonged to al-Wafd, al-Tagammu, al-Dustur al-Igtima'i al-Hurr parties or the Muslim Brotherhood, stress in their notification that under Dr. Suleiman, the Ministry of Housing was ravaged by unprecedented levels of corruption, as people's money was stolen and the country's wealth was abused and distributed to a handful of people almost for free, thus allowing them to make billions of gains.

They explain the minister took part in what they call methodological organized corruption, as he took hold of vast areas of land and villas and distributed them to his family and relatives.

They say he also involved businessmen by giving them hundreds of state-owned acres of lands for building, thus providing the worst example of how to take advantage of influence, profiteer and waste public money.

The MPs add that the lands obtained by Mr. Suleiman's relatives were in privileged positions in New Cairo and Marina. They also unveil that the former minister sold a 306 m2 house to a contractor and many acres of land to different companies.

The MPs also explain that those beneficiaries obtained those lands by installment but only gave a 10% down-payment, while they also got billions in loans from Egyptian banks. "The plundering affected people-owned real estates and people's bank deposits" the MPs say.

بقلم د.نبيل على ٢٢/ ١١/ ٢٠٠٨
فى مؤتمر مؤسسة الفكر العربى، الذى عقد بالقاهرة مؤخراً، ألقى د. هانى هلال كلمة الافتتاح نيابة عن الرئيس حسنى مبارك، بصفته راعى المؤتمر، وقد تعثر بشدة وزير تعليمنا العالى فى تأدية المهمة الموكلة إليه، فقد اغتال لغتنا العربية فى الصميم، وقد مثّل هذا صدمة قاسية لجميع الضيوف، لما زخر به إلقاؤه من أخطاء لغوية فجة ومشينة، لاسيما أنها قد ارتكبت فى مؤتمر تقيمه مؤسسة للفكر العربى حيث للغة مكانتها الرفيعة.

وإحقاقاً للحق، فقد كان وزيرنا متسقا من بداية الكلمة حتى نهايتها، فلم يصادف ساكنا إلا وحرّكه، ولا فاعلا إلا ونصبه، ولا مفعولا إلا ورفعه، ولا مجروراً إلا ورفعه أو نصبه، أما الممنوع من الصرف فقد صرف النظر عنه، رافعاً عنه الحظر، ربما تحقيقاً لمبدأ العدالة الاجتماعية من منظور لغوى، فاللغة كما يقول بيتر برجر هى التى تجعل من المجتمع واقعاً.

لقد أساء وزير تعليمنا العالى بذلك إساءة بالغة لبلده مصر، مصر على مبارك ولطفى السيد وطه حسين وبنت الشاطئ، وكل هذا الرعيل العظيم الذين لم يفرقوا بين احترام لغة أمتهم واحترامهم لأهلها، وقد أهان وزيرنا، بإهانته اللغة العربية، كل المصريين.

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