ON THE MONEY TRAIL: Corruption in the news - Dec. 27

CAIRO - Anas El-Feky, Egypt's former information minister, was released on Wednesday, becoming the second Mubarak-era official accused of corruption to be freed within two days, Ahram online reports. The court also ordered his case be retried. In September last year El-Feky was given a seven-year prison sentence for squandering roughly $230,000 from the government-run Egyptian Radio and Television Union.

CAIRO - As Egyptian regulatory agencies work to uproot corruption within the government, officials and economists say that the process to eradicate a culture of bribery and power abuse will be a long and difficult task, Al-Shorfa reports. However, efforts are currently under way to increase the performance of government oversight, as the government studies a proposal to implement a comprehensive rehabilitation programme for personnel, officials said. According to Samir al-Hafnawi, an auditor with the general directorate of the General Authority for Financial Control, "the proposed comprehensive rehabilitation programme will put stricter emphasis on financial receivables reports and prevent conflicts of interest."

TEHRAN - Four children of an influential former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani are suing a radical politician for describing his family as a corrupt "octopus", the Guardian newspaper reports. The dispute has rekindled bitterness between backers of the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and moderates headed by Rafsanjani, six months before the next presidential election. One of the ex-president's sons, Mehdi Rafsanjani, was arrested in late September, a day after he returned to Iran from Britain, on charges of fomenting unrest in the aftermath of Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election. He was released from Evin prison on bail this month, and has not been put on trial.

RIYADH — An official from the National Anti-Corruption Commission announced that the commission handed rewards to a number of whistleblowers after the commission verified that their reports were true, the Saudi Gazette reports. The source added that a number of the whistleblowers refused to accept their rewards, saying that their intentions were the desire to eliminate corruption, and what they did was a duty of every citizen, as well as an obligation to their homeland.

LUSAKA – Former First Lady of Zambia Thandiwe Banda has sued the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) over the seizure of apartments she owns, The Times of Zambia reports. She said she set up a trust and intended to lease the apartments for the benefit of her twins’ health and education needs. She said the restriction notice was issued on the pretext that ACC was conducting investigations into suspected corruption offences.

KAMPALA - Corruption has for long been a constant narrative in Uganda’s political sphere but as the curtains roll down on 2012, society will bemoan the new and worrying state that the Pearl of Africa finds itself mired in, the Daily Monitor reports. Ugandans have grown seemingly weary of cases where taxpayers’ money is siphoned off by well-connected government officials, often walking away scot-free. But the scandals that rocked the apex of government ministries, the Office of the Prime Minister, and the Public Service ministry this year, re-ignited public interest.

BELGRADE -- The Serbian Justice Ministry has made a first working version of the Anti-Corruption Strategy with zero tolerance towards corruption, the B92 website reports. The ministry has forwarded the strategy to relevant ministries to get their opinions and comments, according to information obtained from the ministry. After receiving answers, the working group will consider suggestions and make the strategy for the fight against corruption in the next three years. 

MONTREAL — In the time it took Quebec’s corruption inquiry to complete its fall sitting, three long-standing mayors had resigned, municipal parties were decimated or disbanded, and a shadow of suspicion spread over the political world, The Province newspaper reports. Turn the page to 2013 and the corruption-fighting agenda is set to move beyond municipalities into the provincial arena. The head of the inquiry and the boss of the province’s anti-corruption unit have both signalled that their gaze will soon move beyond the municipal level.

BEIJING - Woe to premium rice-wine distillers, potted-plant purveyors and weavers of red carpets. A slew of new regulations issued in recent days to curb corruption and limit showy displays by Chinese officialdom have claimed some unusual victims, Time magazine reports.

SINGAPORE - Corruption-related cases involving public sector employees formed "only a small part" of the total number even though the civil service's public image has been "dented recently by some high profile cases", Today Online reports. Of the 135 offenders charged last year, six were against public sector employees, according to a report released on Wednesday. Published once every two years, the report provides a glance at how the country has fared in areas of national interest.