Immigration Officer on entering and/or leaving the country. (Canada 15 Apr.
2008b)
Incidence of bribery of Egyptian border officials
, "[t]here was a widespread public
perception of corruption in the executive ... branch" (US 6 Mar. 2007, Sec. 3).
According to the World Bank and reported by the Utstein Anti-Corruption
Resource Centre, an organization operated by a private European foundation
addressing corruption challenges worldwide (Utstein, n.d.b.), Egypt is one of the
most corrupt countries in the Middle East and North Africa Region (Utstein n.d.a).
The Administrative Control Authority is the body monitoring corruption in Egypt
but, Freedom House reports that, "it lacks jurisdiction to investigate accusations
of corruption against certain categories of state employees" (2007,
Sec. "Anticorruption and Transparency").
The Utstein Anti-Corruption Resource Centre declares that Egypt
has "emerged as a leader in the Middle East to promote reform in this area"
(Utstein n.d.a). The US Department of State 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report
corroborates this opinion stating that in 2005, Egypt "improved training for
border security officials to prevent smuggling and trafficking, and incorporated
innovative tools to interdict traffickers as they travel through the Sinai Desert"
(US 2006). According to the same source, Egyptian authorities have increased
scrutiny at major airports in Cairo and Sharm el Sheikh to prevent traffickers
from entering the country (US 2006, Sec. "Prevention").
According to Dr. Ahmed Refaat Khafagi whose publication was translated
into English by Howard L. Stovall, Attorney at Law, an expert on Middle East
commercial law established in Chicago (Stovall n.d.a.), Articles 103 through 111
of the Egyptian Criminal Law punish bribery (Khafagi 1986, Sec. 5). According to
Freedom House, punishment for the crime of bribery can include fines and
imprisonment (2007 Sec. "Anticorruption and Transparency"). No information
could be found on prosecution or punishment of border officials among the
sources consulted by the Research Directorate. Instead, the Canadian Migration
Integrity Officer at the Embassy of Canada reported the following:
In general terms, entry/exit controls are quite ineffective and use of
counterfeit/altered documents and impostors extremely prevalent. Immigration
Officers are relatively poorly trained in detection of counterfeit documents and
in some cases, very open to corruption, especially on land border crossings.
(Canada 15 Apr. 2008a)
Furthermore, he added
[The] southern border, along [the] Sudanese/Egyptian border is susceptible to
corruption and until [the] recent escalation of hostilities along the Gaza Strip,
[the] Israeli/Egyptian border used to be heavily exposed to corruption. In other
words, corruption is driven by the law of supply and demand and [the]
prevalence of criminal organization's ability to penetrate certain areas. Current
security considerations along the Israeli/Egyptian border make it quite difficult
for the border guards to look the other way. (Canada 15 Apr. 2008b)