Defence and Security Policy and Policy Transparency
Q1
0/100
Is there formal provision for effective and independent legislative scrutiny of defence policy?
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According to sources, the Parliament has the legal power to practice oversight on all laws, and public decision making in all sectors, including the…
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According to sources, there has not been any debate about defence policies in the last five years. Although there are standard mechanisms granted by…
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According to sources, the military and the executive (president) have been attempting to undermine scrutiny or questions on the financial and political assets and…
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Q2
13/100
Does the country have an identifiable and effective parliamentary defence and security committee (or similar such organisations) to exercise oversight?
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According to our sources, there is a committee (DNSC) within the Parliament that has a mandate to oversight and scrutinize the defence and security…
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According to our sources, the committee has expertise in defence and military affairs. They are mostly former members of the army (1), (2), (3).…
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According to our sources, the committee has failed to review reports, data, and policy in the last five years. The committee’s work is symbolic…
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According to our sources, the committee has no oversight over the defence policy. The meetings of the committee are restricted and have never been…
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As the information in the previous sub-sections shows, and according to our sources, there are no investigations by any commissions or committees with regards…
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According to our sources, there are no known reports with recommendations from any committee or commission that the government can then incorporate into practice…
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Q3
0/100
Is the country’s national defence policy or national security strategy debated and publicly available?
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According to our sources, there is no debate within the executive with a focus on defence policy. Any security or defence operation/strategy is not…
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According to sources, there is very limited debate from journalists and academics about defence strategic operations (such as the one in Sinai)(1). However, most…
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According to our sources, there has not been any kind of public consultation with regards to the defence sector in the last five years…
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It is prohibited by law to publish documents on defence policy or security strategy. Law no. 14 (1967) prohibits the publishing or broadcasting of…
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Q4
0/100
Do defence and security institutions have a policy, or evidence, of openness towards civil society organisations (CSOs) when dealing with issues of corruption?
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There is no official or unofficial policy requiring that the defence sector to be open towards CSOs. On the contrary, the military establishment is…
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According to our sources, although Egypt has many NGOs, many operate under a very restrictive and sensitive, military rule, there is no cooperation or…
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According to our sources, there is not an open policy towards CSOs. The military receives many requests by NGOs for cooperation and debate, but…
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Q5
50/100
Has the country signed up to the following international anti-corruption instruments: UNCAC and the OECD Convention?
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Egypt is not among the 56 arms exporters listed by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (1), and therefore cannot be considered a significant…
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Egypt has failed to achieve to meet many of the improvements that the UNCAC requires, despite passing some anti-corruption laws (1), (2), (3). At…
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Q6
13/100
Is there evidence of regular, active public debate on issues of defence? If yes, does the government participate in this debate?
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Q7
0/100
Does the country have an openly stated and effectively implemented anti-corruption policy for the defence sector?
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According to our sources, there are no anti-corruption policies that apply to the defence sector. There are no institutions that have the authority to…
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This indicator has been marked Not Applicable because Egypt has no anti-corruption strategy that tackles the defence sector (1) (2) (3).
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Q8
17/100
Are there independent, well-resourced, and effective institutions within defence and security tasked with building integrity and countering corruption?
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There is a specialized unit (general inspector of the army) and another directorate (Morale affairs) that cooperate in most cases (1), (2), (3), (4).…
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The head of the Inspection Authority is directly appointed by the minister of defence who has financial and political authority over these units (1),…
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The general inspector of the army and the moral affairs unit have no authority over corruption cases. They are aware of corruption cases, but…
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Q9
NS/100
Does the public trust the institutions of defence and security to tackle the issue of bribery and corruption in their establishments?
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This is indicator is not assigned a score in the GDI. The recent episode and defection of one the military contractors (Mohamed Ali) (1)…
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Q10
0/100
Are there regular assessments of the areas of greatest corruption risk for ministry and armed forces personnel, and are the findings used as inputs to the anti-corruption policy?
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After surveying the Constitution, the anti-corruption strategy, all defence-related laws and media platforms, no evidence has been found to suggest that defence-specific assessments of…
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As our sources indicated there are no risk assessments, this sub-indicator has been scored Not Applicable (1), (2), (3).
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As our sources indicated there are no risk assessments, this sub-indicator has been scored Not Applicable (1), (2), (3).
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Defence Budgets
Q11
8/100
Does the country have a process for acquisition planning that involves clear oversight, and is it publicly available?
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According to our sources, there is acquisition planning in place, but it is not clear, and it has no defined processes or procedures. Furthermore,…
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Law No. 14 (1967) prohibits the publishing or broadcasting of any information or news about the armed forces and its formations, movement, armaments and…
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As explained in 11A, it is unclear whether there is a clear and defined acquisition planning process to determine whether it is subject to…
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Q12
25/100
Is the defence budget transparent, showing key items of expenditure? And it is provided to the legislature in a timely fashion?
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The defence budget (1) is one of the most secretive items in the Egyptian state. Only a topline figure is provided in the national…
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According to our sources, the Parliament receives inaccurate, or very limited information about the defence budget. There has been no incident where the Parliament…
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Q13
0/100
Is there a legislative committee (or other appropriate body) responsible for defence budget scrutiny and analysis in an effective way?
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According to our sources, no committee within the Parliament has the power to oversee and scrutinize the budget of the defence sector. Although there…
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This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, according to our sources, the defence committee has no power over the defence budget they do…
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Q14
0/100
Is the approved defence budget made publicly available? In practice, can citizens, civil society, and the media obtain detailed information on the defence budget?
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According to our sources, the approved defence budget is not published by the government. They affirmed that even the published one item figure of…
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According to our sources, although the topline budget is published, there are no details and all areas in the defence section are absent and…
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According to our sources, it is almost impossible to obtain any information about the military budget of the armed forces. There have been attempts…
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Q15
0/100
Are sources of defence income other than from central government allocation (from equipment sales or property disposal, for example) published and scrutinised?
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The military earns a huge income from economic activities, its budget and sources of income are a mystery and no real and accurate data…
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According to our sources, despite that the military has a huge industry and income from economic activities, its budget and sources of income are…
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According to our sources, there is no public scrutiny over non-central government sources of income despite many efforts to raise questions about the role…
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Q16
6/100
Is there an effective internal audit process for defence ministry expenditure (that is, for example, transparent, conducted by appropriately skilled individuals, and subject to parliamentary oversight)?
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The Financial Authority of the Armed Forces is formally entrusted with auditing the defence ministry expenditure, but there is very little information or evidence…
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Having reviewed relevant legal and non-legal sources and consulted relevant experts, there is no evidence that oversight bodies, namely the parliamentary committee, are provided…
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The two bodies that might have some formal oversight powers over the military are the Parliament and the CAA. This Parliament has very limited…
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According to our sources, there are no auditing reports to view. Therefore, there are no recommendations, and that is why the MoD cannot address…
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Q17
0/100
Is there effective and transparent external auditing of military defence expenditure?
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There is no external scrutiny of the MoD or the armed forces. The CAA theoretically has the power to commit oversight and scrutinize the…
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This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, despite the possible existence of some unclear formal powers, the CAA has no real powers to…
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This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, despite the possible existence of some unclear formal powers, the CAA has no real powers to…
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This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, despite the possible existence of some unclear formal powers, the CAA has no real powers to…
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Nexus of Defence and National Assets
Q18
30/100
Is there evidence that the country’s defence institutions have controlling or financial interests in businesses associated with the country’s natural resource exploitation and, if so, are these interests publicly stated and subject to scrutiny?
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Our sources have confirmed that the army has an extraordinary monopoly over many of the country’s economic and natural resources. From land, oil, to…
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The involvement of the armed forces in business activities related to natural resource exploitation, namely land, is pervasive but usually happens legally from laws…
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The armed forces as an institution is highly involved in businesses related to natural resource exploitation, there is no evidence, however that defence personnel…
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According to our sources, the economic interests of the army and its personnel in the natural resources of the country are not usually declared…
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The interests of the military in the economy and natural resources of the country are not subject to any mechanisms of scrutiny or oversight.…
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Organised Crime
Q19
50/100
Is there evidence, for example through media investigations or prosecution reports, of a penetration of organised crime into the defence and security sector? If no, is there evidence that the government is alert and prepared for this risk?
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There is a moderate likelihood that a group of armed forces could organize criminal groups easily. There is widespread corruption within the armed forces,…
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According to our sources, the government is aware of organized crime in the armed forces, they try to investigate these issues. However, there are…
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Q20
25/100
Is there policing to investigate corruption and organised crime within the defence services and is there evidence of the effectiveness of this policing?
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There is a unit within the MoD designated, the Military Police, which is responsible for dealing with corruption cases and crimes within the armed…
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The Military Police reports to the MoD and the executive. The independence of both the Military Police, the military judicial system, and courts is…
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There is no extra military authority that is entrusted or has the power to investigate or prosecute cases of corruption in the defence sector…
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Control of Intelligence Services
Q21
0/100
Are the policies, administration, and budgets of the intelligence services subject to effective and independent oversight?
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There is no independent oversight or policies that scrutinize the budget of the two intelligence agencies in Egypt. Both of them are linked directly…
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This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, as explained above in 21A, there is no independent oversight of the intelligence service’s policies and…
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Q22
8/100
Are senior positions within the intelligence services filled on the basis of objective selection criteria, and are appointees subject to investigation of their suitability and prior conduct?
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According to our sources, the selection procedures and criteria of senior intelligence officers are not only unclear, but it is also known to be…
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According to our sources, senior positions of the intelligence are most gifts for loyalists. The president as the head of the state distributes these…
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According to our sources, the appointments decrees are based on suggestions from the closed inner circle of the president, and there is no vetting…
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Export Controls
Q23
0/100
Does the government have a well-scrutinised process for arms export decisions that aligns with Articles 7.1.iv, 11.5, and 15.6 of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT)?
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Egypt has neither ratified nor signed the ATT (1).
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This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because Egypt has neither ratified nor signed the ATT (1).
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According to our sources, Egypt has no mechanism of scrutiny over arms exports. The Egyptian military industry is immune from scrutiny. The Arab Organization…
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Lobbying in Defence
This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, after reviewing the Constitution, all the relevant laws, by-laws strategies and media platforms, there is no…
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This sub-indicator was marked Not Applicable because no legislation regulates lobbying. However, for conflict of interest, Article 16 of Law no. 106 (2013) states…
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This sub-indicator was marked Not Applicable because the country has no legislation that regulates lobbying in the defence sector (1), (2), (3), (4).
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This sub-indicator was marked Not Applicable because the country has no legislation that regulates lobbying in the defence sector (1), (2), (3), (4).
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