Mada Masr’s Amr Adly bit the bullet and pored through former head of the Central Auditing Authority Hisham Genena’s report on state corruption, which Genena said cost state coffers some EGP 600 bn between 2012 and 2015. The report and the figures claimed within it, as most of our readers are aware, led to Genena’s dismissal and charges being filed against him for the dissemination of false news.

Adly’s review of the 350-page report finds “no clear methodology. It neither provides a procedural definition of corruption from which we can derive quantitative criteria to estimate the losses resulting from it, nor does it set a specific timeframe for the incidents it examines.”

One of the more patently absurd ideas bouncing around in Genena’s head and his report is that he includes the value of land upon which informal settlements have been built as part of the EGP 600 bn corruption price tag. As Adly rightly points out, “informal settlements make up some 60 percent of urban space in Egypt and house around 70 percent of the population.” What, then, would Genena have the state do to remedy this incredibly interesting definition of corruption? Raze the homes of 70% of the population, make them homeless, then sell the land? Genena also thinks NUCA sells land on the cheap, and that is corruption to him as well. It never seems to occur to Genena that high land prices leads to increased costs of housing, which has exacerbated the growth of informal settlements.

We’re basically looking at Egyptian taxi-driver-level reasoning skills in Genena’s report. Adly’s analysis of the document, and his appeal for public policy debate as opposed to litigation and the undermining of the sanctity of state institutions, is the definitive read on the Genena case. (Read Objective notes on Hesham Genena’s corruption report)