Prime Minister Hesham Qandil on Thursday asked the Cabinet's legislative committee to amend anti-corruption legislation to increase penalties against perpetrators, a Cabinet source said.

The source told Al-Masry Al-Youm, “Justice Minister Ahmed Mekky and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mohamed Mahsoub Abdel Meguid were assigned to draft these amendments, and present them to the prime minister.”

“The formation of committees to combat financial and administrative corruption in the government will be announced within a few days,” the source said.

“The committee would develop regulations to end the inheritance of state positions, reduce the number of governmental advisors, and establish oversight bodies to monitor the performance of officials and public companies,” added the source. “The committee would also establish rules for promotions and bonuses.”

Abdel Meguid said Wednesday: “The anti-corruption committees are different from the the Central Auditing Agency, which does not monitor government performance, but deals with governmental accounting. The new committees would monitor government performance and efficiency.”

The parliamentary affairs minister said that curtailing government corruption would relieve LE25 billion per year of the total budget deficit, which reached LE175 billion during the 2011/2012 fiscal year.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm