Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria, in...

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Algeria is probing corruption cases in the wake of public outrage over the alleged misappropriation of billions of dinars and other manipulation of government projects for personal gain.

“The corruption cases revealed lately are just the tip of the iceberg,” financial journalist Slim Abdulrahman said last week. “What lies under wraps is far greater.”

The government estimates that $1.7 billion in public-sector funds have been lost to corruption.

Finance Minister Karim Djoudi has unleashed investigations into the scandal-plagued agriculture, water resources and transportation ministries, among others, to snuff out fraudulent contracts and exchanges of funds.

“The investigations squads conducted 128 monitoring operations across the concerned sectors in 2009 to look into some of the scandals. Also, 154 reports were issued on the reported transgressions,” he told Magharebia on Monday (December 14th), adding that hundreds of similar monitoring operations and investigations were conducted in the general directorates of customs and taxes.

The investigations were set in motion by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who on October 28th called for the creation of a National Anti-Corruption Committee at the start of the new legislative year, setting in motion compliance with an article in the 2006 Anti-Corruption Law.

The president also pledged the fair use of several legislative and regulatory mechanisms in order to bring to justice all those involved in corruption cases.

The new anti-corruption measures also mean that more than 70% of the projects currently under way have been reassessed by the National Fund for Preparation for Development, which monitors funding for 72% of all public projects. More >