Employees at US group alleged programmes are less about helping Egyptians and more about serving American interests
IRI officials deny doing anything improper and dismiss the former employees as disgruntled. But the workers' small revolt, unknown to most, was significant because it reflected a growing sense in Egypt that US-backed democracy programmes were less about helping Egyptians and more about serving American interests.
he Media Line Staff
Amman, Jordan David Rosenberg / The Med – It’s been a tough year for officials on the take in Jordan.
Spurred by chronic street protests, whose list of grievances is topped by official malfeasance, former Amman mayor Omar Maani was arrested on fraud charges in December and two months later, Mohammad Dahabi, former director of Jordan’s intelligence service, was taken into custody on charges of money laundering.
The year is not half over, but Jordan’s Anti-Corruption Commission has already referred 41 cases of suspected wrongdoing to the judiciary. Even a member of the country’s anti-corruption panel, Sanaa Mihyar, was detained briefly this month. She and her old boss, Amer Bashir, a former deputy mayor of Amman, have been charged with graft in connection with the purchase of two garbage trucks.
Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), fighting corruption has been the clarion call of Arab Spring protestors, ensnaring once untouchable officials in places like Egypt and Libya. But if a survey published this week by the accounting firm Ernst & Young and the security consulting firm Perpetuity Research and Consultancy International is correct, the anti-corruption drive has barely scratched the surface.
As independence movements pushed out European imperialists, Arabs were finally no longer second-class citizens in their own countries. Wahab's song for "a perfect unity" captured a goal that today, as democratic movements sweep the region, has returned to once again fill Arabs with hope and pride. Read more
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