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CAIRO — President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s March 28 decree relieving Hisham Geneina, the head of the Accountability State Authority (ASA), the country’s central auditing agency, of his post and appointing Geneina’s deputy Hesham Badawi to run the authority did not come as a surprise.
Many were expecting this decision months before its issuance, given the fierce campaign waged against Geneina due to statements he made to Egyptian daily Al-Youm Al-Sabea in December 2015, which claimed that the cost of corruption had reached 600 billion Egyptian pounds (around $76 billion) in 2015. These statements stirred a nationwide controversy in Egypt.
