Finding Mubarak's billions a noble task for new Egypt

Post-revolution, Cairo's citizens are crying out for a slice of former president Hosni Mubarak's ill-gotten billions. The new regime must decide how they will find and return the people's cash, James Doran writes.

Egyptians take part in a protest demanding the army hand power to civilians in Cairo's Tahrir Square last week. Suhaib Salem / Reuters

A friend was in Cairo last week trying to pack more meetings than ought to be possible into a single day. For this he needed the services of a local driver, one who could navigate the impassible insanity of the Egyptian capital's streets with necessary haste.

But the driver was never where he was supposed to be when he was needed. He would drop my friend off then promptly disappear. At the end of a particularly fraught day, my friend asked his driver where he went and why. The apologetic chauffeur explained that his frequent sorties were to keep his place in Tahrir Square - a place that he believed was worth at least US$1,000 (Dh3,673).

Perplexed, my friend asked him to explain.

The driver, and hundreds of his compatriots, are holding an informal vigil in Tahrir Square waiting for the return of the former president Hosni Mubarak's supposedly vast fortune, which they imagine will be shared among them.

They believe international reports that say Mr Mubarak managed to accumulate a fortune of $40 billion to $80bn during his decades in power; $70bn is the figure that seems to have stuck.

There are 81 million or so Egyptians, meaning each of them should be entitled - so the driver and his friends believe - to a payout of about $1,000 if and when the $70bn or $80bn is returned.

Sadly, the driver and his friends are more than likely entirely deluded.The idea that Mr Mubarak would have been able to accumulate anything near $70bn is crazy.

Before that ridiculously large figure took hold in the international media, numbers surrounding Mr Mubarak's wealth rarely exceeded $5bn, with some reports as low as $2bn. Somewhere between those two figures is probably nearer the truth.

What is more, the idea that such a sum, if anyone ever managed to locate and retrieve it, would simply be divvied up for the populace would be funny were it not such a sad story.

Their unfortunate delusion aside, my friend's driver and his vigil-keeping friends highlight a crucial aspect of the political and economic development of post-revolutionary Egypt that is also relevant for neighbouring Libya and Tunisia.

These economies, regardless of the natural resources they possess, are in a desperate state. They are short on cash and long on poverty and disarray.

The Egyptian driver and his friends know that somewhere there are billions of dollars of plundered funds that should be restored to them. Indeed, the new regime has promised those funds will be found and returned.

But it has been more than a year since Swiss banks and the like pledged to freeze the assets of Mr Mubarak and the other deposed North African dictators, and we have heard next to nothing more.

And while the people of Egypt wait, as do their Libyan and Tunisian neighbours, public and private finances continue to worsen. The Egyptian regime, whether the current armed forces-backed cabinet or the various committees set up by the majority Muslim Brotherhood, must take control of the search for and repatriation of Mr Mubarak's billions.

First, the people of Egypt deserve a realistic accounting of just how much the asset hunters should be looking for. Keeping the public in ill-informed hope of securing tens of billions of repatriated funds is negligent to the point of cruelty.

Second, a real international search for the personnel who managed the dictator's wealth and kept the accounts that hid his fortune must be made a priority. The bankers in Switzerland, the Caribbean and other tax havens know who they are and should be forced to tell.

Third, and perhaps most important, a clear plan for disbursing those funds, once they have been found, is crucial. Clearly the driver and his friends will not be getting a cheque in the post, but they deserve to know what the new regime will do with the cash.

Mr Mubarak's billions, just like Muammar Qaddafi's and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's, are more than just sums of money. They are the ill-gotten proceeds of a period of history that must be neither repeated nor forgotten, and they must be spent accordingly. A fund for economic and social development would be a good place to start.

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