Egypt arrests agriculture minister

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities Monday arrested the country’s agriculture minister over corruption allegations, security sources said, just after his resignation was announced.
The prime minister’s office released a statement earlier in the day saying Salah El Din Mahmoud Helal’s resignation had been accepted on the instructions of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.
“He was arrested in connection with a corruption case involving illegal land licenses,” a security official said. “He is under investigation.”
Egypt has begun reforms meant to strengthen an economy hit by political turmoil since an uprising toppled president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
The arrest comes weeks before long-delayed parliamentary elections are due to be held after security forces launched a crackdown on the government’s Islamist opponents in an effort to create stability and encourage foreign investment.
The Agriculture Ministry in July banned cotton imports in order, it said, to boost local production. Egypt grows a high-quality staple “white-gold” cotton, but output has been falling for years.
Eight days later the Cabinet reversed the decision without any explanation, saying only that it was in the context of “developing cotton farming and supporting its farmers,” in a U-turn that raised questions about the economy’s management.
An Egyptian official said the minister was sacked for mismanagement. “There was a host of factors leading up to this decision as he wasn’t taking full charge of his ministry and decisions coming out of it were often at odds with other ministries like the Trade and Industry Ministry,” the official said.