CAIRO (Middle East Eye) – Egyptian opposition figure and YouTuber Abdullah al-Sharif has broadcast on his show an audio leak reportedly of advisers to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi discussing bribes.
In the leak, an officer with the rank of major-general, Farouk al-Kadi, can be heard coordinating bribes worth millions of Egyptian pounds (EGP) with a woman named Mervat Mohammed Ali. Sharif said that both of them work as advisers to Sisi.
Kadi’s conversation with Ali revolves around projects for the Engineering Authority of the Armed Forces, which is supervised by army officers and through whom contracts for building stations and projects are passed to the authority.
The leak discloses that Kadi grants EGP2m (about $127,000) to Ali for every project she passes on to him. It also indicates that all these projects are then passed to the army without being put out to public tender.
The leak also reveals that the major-general is a partner in a law and legal consultations firm. He can be heard saying that he “intentionally puts the names of officers and major- generals in the contracts with the aim of intimidating those who object to them”.
According to Sharif, the bribery and corruption heard in the leak amount to EGP 68m (around $4.3mn).
Sharif also focused on Kadi’s reference in the leak to the theft of 160 antiquities by officers during excavation and construction work at a park in Alexandria.