Remember last year’s exposé of corruption in the wheat subsidy smart card system by Reuters’ Eric Knecht? On Thursday, the Illicit Gains Authority referred “two employees from the Smart Cards Applications Company to criminal court on charges of graft allegedly worth EGP 60 mn,” Ahram Online reports. The employees allegedly work for one of three companies tasked with printing food subsidy cards and are accused of “fraudulently creating one mn cards by duplicating existing cards, activating cancelled cards, and issuing cards to those who were not eligible.” Knecht’s excellent report had mentioned industry sources saying “the smart card system could be hacked, allowing some bakers to falsify receipts and request far more subsidised flour than they officially sold… that triggered a wave of fraud higher up the supply chain.” He said employees of the company producing the cards had the ability to hack the system and “reset the card allowing more spending. So instead of spending once or twice a month you can spend 1,000 times.”

Tags: